and he carried himself with a light ease that looked silken strong.
Something in the bearing was familiar yet not quite familiar either. It
seemed to suggest a resemblance to somebody she knew. And in the next
thought she knew that the somebody was Ned Bannister.

The man spoke to Fraser, just then passing with a cup of coffee, and
Helen saw the two men approach. The stranger was coming to be formally
introduced.

"Shake hands with Mr. Holloway, Miss Messiter. He's from up in the hill
country and he rode to our frolic. Y'u've got three guesses to figure
out what he's made up as."

"One will be quite enough, I think," she answered coldly.

Fraser departed on his destination with the coffee and the newcomer sat
down on the bench beside her.

"One's enough, is it?" he drawled smilingly.

"Quite, but I'm surprised so few came in costume. Why didn't you? But I
suppose you had your reasons."

"Didn't I? I'm supposed to be a bad man from the hills."

She swept him casually with an indifferent glance. "And isn't that what
you are in real life?"

His sharp scrutiny chiseled into her. "What's that?"

"You won't mind if I forget and call you Mr. Bannister instead of Mr.
Holloway?"

She thought his counterfeit astonishment perfect.

"So I'm Ned Bannister, am I?"

Their eyes clashed.

"Aren't you?"

She felt sure of it, and yet there was a lurking doubt. For there was
in his manner something indescribably more sinister than she had felt
in him on that occasion when she had saved his life. Then a debonair
recklessness had been the outstanding note, but now there was something
ribald and wicked in him.

"Since y'u put it as a question, common politeness demands an answer.
Ned Bannister is my name."

"You are the terror of this country?"

"I shan't be a terror to y'u, ma'am, if I can help it," he smiled.

"But you are the man they call the king?"

"I have that honor."

"HONOR?"

At the sharp scorn of her accent he laughed.

"Do you mean that you are proud of your villainy?" she demanded.

"Y'u've ce'tainly got the teacher habit of asking questions," he replied
with a laugh that was a sneer.

A shadow fell across them and a voice said quietly, "She didn't wait to
ask any when she saved your life down in the coulee back of the Lazy D."

The shadow was Jim McWilliams's, and its owner looked down at the man
beside the girl with steady, hostile eyes.

"Is this your put in, sir?" the other flashed back.