,"
the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the
precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion.

Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call
that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of
elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim,
brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the
world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes.

As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another
rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging
water at every step, and cantered up toward him.

Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not
until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the
cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had
been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering
him instantly.

"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he
drawled.

"The rustler!" she cried.

"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently.

"Let me past," she panted.

He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just
left.

"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested.

The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion
again, flying up the canon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's
hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat.

Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed
elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl:

"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you
ain't in such a hurry."

But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was
busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much
he knew at least.

He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the
canon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded
up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller
and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed
the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.

"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted
to know amiably.

The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm
bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large,
heavy-set man