older than I am."

The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: "He is only
twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was
born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type
that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the
cattle frontier."

"Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?"

"In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is
past--the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt's, and short
lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins."

"Surely you cannot mean that this--You called him 'Kid.'"

"Kid Gowan," she confirmed. "Yes, he holds to the old traditions even
in that. There are six notches on the hilt of his 'gun,' if you count
the two little ones he nicked for his brace of Utes."

"What! He is a real Indian fighter, like Kit Carson?"

"Oh, no, it was merely a band of hide hunters that came over the line
from Utah, and Mr. Gowan helped the game warden run them back to their
reservation."

"He actually killed two of them?"

"Yes," replied the girl, her gravity deepening to a concerned frown.
"The worst of it is that I'm not altogether certain it was necessary.
Men out here, as a rule, think much too little of the life of an
Indian."

"Ah!" murmured Ashton. "Two Indians. But didn't you speak of six
notches?"

"Six," confirmed the girl, her brow partly clearing. "The others were
different. Three were rustlers. The sheriff's posse overtook them.
Both sides were firing. Kid circled around and shot three. He happened
to have a long-range rifle. Daddy says they threw up their hands when
the first one fell; but Kid explained to me that he was too far away
to see it."

"Ah!" murmured Ashton the second time, and he put up his hand to the
hole in the front of his sombrero.

"The last was two years ago," went on the girl. "There was a dispute
over a maverick. Kid was tried and acquitted on his plea of
self-defense. There were no witnesses. He claimed that the other man
drew first. Two empty shells were found in the other man's revolver,
and only one in Kid's. That cleared him."

Ashton took off his hat and stared at the holes where the heavy
forty-four bullet had gone in and gone out. He was silent.

"You see, poor Kid has been unfortunate," remarked the girl, as she
headed her pony down over the edge of the mesa. "That time with the
rustlers, all the posse were firing, and he just happen