him get _this_ calf-killer," observed
Ashton.

"Oh, as soon as we saw your tenderfoot riding togs--!" she rejoined.
"Seriously, though, you must not mind if the men poke a little fun at
you. Most of them are more farmhands than cowboys, but Kid will be apt
to lead off. I do so want you to be agreeable to Kid. He is almost a
member of the family, not a hired man."

"I shall try to be agreeable to him," replied Ashton, a trifle
stiffly.

The puncher had seen them probably before they saw him. He was riding
at a pace that brought him to the horse corral a few moments ahead of
them. When they came up he nodded carelessly in response to Ashton's
studiously polite greeting, "Good day, Mr. Gowan," and turned to
loosen the cinch of his saddle.

"You've been riding some," remarked the girl, looking at the puncher's
heaving, lathered horse.

"Jumped that wolf--ran him," replied Gowan, as he lifted off his
saddle and deftly tossed it up on the top rail of the corral.

"You're in luck," congratulated Miss Isobel. She explained to Ashton:
"The cattlemen in this county pay fifteen dollars for wolf scalps.
That's in addition to the state bounty."

Ashton sprang off to offer her his hand. But she was on the ground as
soon as he. Gowan stared at him between narrowed lids, and replied to
the girl somewhat shortly: "I didn't get him this time, Miss
Chuckie."

"You didn't? That's too bad! You don't often miss. I wish you had been
with me, to run down the scoundrel who tried to murder Mr. Ashton."

Gowan burst into the harsh, strained laughter of one who seldom gives
way to mirth. He checked himself abruptly and cast a hostile look at
Ashton. "By--James, Miss Chuckie, you don't mean to say you let a
tenderfoot string you?"

"How about this?" asked the girl. She held out the silver flask, which
she had not returned to Ashton.

Gowan gave it a casual glance, and answered almost jeeringly: "Easy
enough for him to set it up and plug it--if he didn't get too far
away."

"His rifle is a thirty-two. This was done by a thirty-eight," she
replied.

"Thirty-eight?" he repeated. "Let's see." He took the flask from her,
drew a rifle cartridge from his belt, and fitted the steel-jacketed
bullet into the clean, small hole. "You're right, Miss Chuckie. It
shore was a thirty-eight." He turned sharply on Ashton. "Where'd it
happen? Who was it?"

"Over on that dry stream," answered Ashton. "Unfortunately the fellow
was too far away for m