the tribute of their
respect to the bravado of this scamp who sat so jauntily his seat
regardless of what the next moment might bring forth. Three wounded men
were about the place, all presumably quite willing to get a clean
shot at him in the open. One of them had taken his chance already, and
missed. Their visitor had no warrant for knowing that a second might not
any instant try his luck with better success. Yet he looked every inch
the man on horseback, no whit disturbed, not the least conscious of
any danger. Tall, spare, broad shouldered, this berry-brown young man,
crowned with close-cropped curls, sat at the gates of the enemy very
much at his insolent case.

"I came over to pay my party call," he explained.

"It really wasn't necessary. A run in the machine is not a formal
function."

"Maybe not in Kalamazoo."

"I thought perhaps you had come to get my purse and the sixty-three
dollars," she derided.

"No, ma'am; nor yet to get that bunch of cows I was going to rustle from
you to buy an auto. I came to ask you to go riding with me."

The audacity of it took her breath. Of all the outrageous things she had
ever heard, this was the cream. An acknowledged outlaw, engaged in feud
with her retainers over that deadly question of the run of the range,
he had sauntered over to the ranch where lived a dozen of his enemies,
three of them still scarred with his bullets, merely to ask her to go
riding with him. The magnificence of his bravado almost obliterated its
impudence. Of course she would not think of going. The idea! But her
eyes glowed with appreciation of his courage, not the less because the
consciousness of it was so conspicuously absent from his manner.

"I think not, Mr. Bannister" and her face almost imperceptibly
stiffened. "I don't go riding with strangers, nor with men who shoot
my boys. And I'll give you a piece of advice, sir. That is, to burn
the wind back to your home. Otherwise I won't answer for your life. My
punchers don't love you, and I don't know how long I can keep them from
you. You're not wanted here any more than you were at the dance the
other evening."

McWilliams nodded. "That's right. Y'u better roll your trail, seh; and
if y'u take my advice, you'll throw gravel lively. I seen two of the
boys cutting acrost that pasture five minutes ago. They looked as if
they might be haided to cut y'u off, and I allow it may be their night
to howl. Miss Messiter don't want to be responsible