st out as if by
an explosion within. She took off the silver cap, shook out the
shattered glass of the inner flask, and looked again at the small
hole.

"A thirty-eight," she observed.

"Pardon me," he replied. "I fail to--Ah, yes; thirty-eight caliber,
you mean."

"It is I who must ask pardon," she said in frank apology. "Your rifle
is a thirty-two. I heard a number of shots, ending with the rattle of
an automatic. Thought you were after another deer."

He could afford to smile at the merry thrust and the flash of dimples
that accompanied it.

"At least it wasn't a calf this time," he replied. "Nor was it a doe.
But it may have been a buck."

"Indian?" she queried, with instant perception of his play on the
word.

"I didn't see any war plumes," he admitted.

"War plumes? Oh, that _is_ a joke!" she exclaimed. She chanced to look
down at the shattered flask, and her merriment vanished. "But this
isn't any joke. Didn't you see the man who was shooting at you?"

"Yes, after I jumped my pony down into the creek. Perhaps the bandit
thought he had tumbled us both. He stood up on top the ridge, until I
cut loose and made him run."

"He ran?"

Ashton's eyes sparkled at the remembrance, and his chest began to
expand. Then he met the girl's clear, direct gaze, and answered
modestly: "Well, you see, when I had got down behind the bank our
positions were reversed. He was the one in full view. It's curious,
though, Miss Knowles--shooting at that poor calf, under the impression
it was a deer, I simply couldn't hold my rifle steady, while--"

"No wonder, if it was your first deer," put in the girl. "We call it
buck fever."

"Yes, but wouldn't you have thought my first bandit--Why, I couldn't
have aimed at him more steadily if I had been made of cast iron."

"Guess he had made you fighting mad," she bantered; but under her
seeming levity he perceived a change in her manner towards him
immensely gratifying to his humbled self-esteem.

"At first I was just a trifle apprehensive--" He hesitated, and
suddenly burst out with a candid confession--"No, not a trifle!
Really, I was horribly frightened!"

This was more than the girl had hoped from him. She nodded and smiled
in open approval. "You had a good right to be frightened. I don't
blame you for spurring that way. Look. It wasn't only one shot that
came close. There's a neat hair brand on your hawss's hip that wasn't
there yesterday."

"Must have been the shot jus