joined eyes ended in drawn battle.

"Have y'u the nerve?" He looked her over, so dainty and so resolute, so
silken strong; and he knew he had his answer.

His smoldering eyes burned with desire to snatch her to him and ride
away into the hills. For he was a man who lived in his sensations. He
had won many women to their hurt, but it was the joy of conflict that
made the pursuit worth while to him; and this young woman, who could so
delightfully bubble with little laughs ready to spill over and was yet
possessed of a spirit so finely superior to the tenderness of her soft,
round, maidenly curves, allured him mightily to the attack.

She dropped the revolver back into the bag and shut the clasp with a
click, "And now I think, Mr. Bannister, that I'll not detain you any
longer. We understand each other sufficiently."

He rose with a laugh that mocked. "I expaict to spend quite a bit of
time understanding y'u one of these days. In the meantime this is to our
better acquaintance."

Deliberately, without the least haste, he stooped and kissed her before
she could rally from the staggering surprise of the intention she read
in his eyes too late to elude. Then, with the coolest bravado in the
world, he turned on his heel and strolled away.

Angry sapphires gleamed at him from under the long, brown lashes. She
was furious, aghast, daunted. By the merest chance she was sitting in a
corner of the box, so screened from observation that none could see. But
the insolence of him, the reckless defiance of all standards of society,
shook her even while it enraged her. He had put forth his claim like
a braggart, but he had made good with an audacity superb in its
effrontery. How she hated him! How she feared him! The thoughts were
woven inseparably in her mind. Mephisto himself could not have impressed
himself more imperatively than this strutting, heartless master artist
in vice.

She saw him again presently down in the arena, for it was his turn to
show his skill at roping. Texas had done well; very well, indeed. He had
made the throw and tie in thirty-seven seconds, which was two seconds
faster than the record of the previous year. But she knew instinctively,
as her fascinated eyes watched the outlaw preparing for the feat, that
he was going to win. He would use his success as a weapon against
her; as a means of showing her that he always succeeded in whatever he
undertook. So she interpreted he look he flung her as he waited