ight off yore hawss. Y'u don't say," sympathized Mac so
breathlessly that even Reddy joined in the chorus of laughter that went
up at his expense.

The young woman thought to make it easy for him, and suggested an
explanation.

"His horse isn't used to automobiles, and so when it met this one--"

"I got off," interposed Reddy hastily, displaying a complexion like a
boiled beet.

"He got off," Mac explained gravely to the increasing audience.

Denver nodded with an imperturbable face. "He got off."

Mac introduced Miss Messiter to such of her employees as were on hand.
"Shake hands with Miss Messiter, Missou," was the formula, the name
alone varying to suit the embarrassed gentlemen in leathers. Each of
them in turn presented a huge hand, in which her little one disappeared
for the time, and was sawed up and down in the air like a pump-handle.
Yet if she was amused she did not show it; and her pleasure at meeting
the simple, elemental products of the plains outweighed a great deal her
sense of the ludicrous.

"How are your patients getting along?" she presently asked of her
foreman.

"I reckon all right. I sent Reddy for a doc, but--"

"He got off," murmured Mac pensively.

"I'll go rope another hawss," put in the man who had got off.

"Get a jump on you, then. Miss Messiter, would you like to look over the
place?"

"Not now. I want to see the men that were hurt. Perhaps I can help them.
Once I took a few weeks in nursing."

"Bully for you, ma'am," whooped Mac. "I've a notion those boys are
sufferin' for a woman to put the diamond-hitch on them bandages."

"Bring that suit-case in," she commanded Denver, in the gentlest voice
he had ever heard, after she had made a hasty inspection of the first
wounded man.

From the suit-case she took a little leather medicine-case, the kind
that can be bought already prepared for use. It held among other things
a roll of medicated cotton, some antiseptic tablets, and a little steel
instrument for probing.

"Some warm water, please; and have some boiling on the range," were her
next commands.

Mac flew to execute them.

It was a pleasure to see her work, so deftly the skillful hands
accomplished what her brain told them. In admiring awe the punchers
stood awkwardly around while she washed and dressed the hurts. Two of
the bullets had gone through the fleshy part of the arm and left clean
wounds. In the case of the third man she had to probe for the lead, but
for