ill you've got about ten million more
hairs wound up," he grumbled.

"Wow! ARE you deliberately torturing me?" she complained, winking with
the pain of his good intentions. "I don't believe he does want to murder
you. I think that was just Saunders trying to make a dandy good job of
it. He doesn't like you, anyway--witness the way you bawled him out that
day you roped--ow-w!--roped the dog. Baumberger may have wanted him
to keep an eye on you--My Heavens, man! Do you think you're plucking a
goose?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," he retorted, grinning a little. "Honest! I'm
trying to go easy, but this infernal bush has sure got a strangle hold
on you--and your hair is so fluffy it's a deuce of a job. You keep
wriggling and getting it caught in new places. If you could only manage
to stand still--but I suppose you can't.

"By the way," he remarked casually, after a short silence, save for an
occasional squeal from Miss Georgie, "speaking of Saunders--I didn't
shoot him."

Miss Georgie looked up at him, to the further entanglement of her hair.
"You DIDN'T? Then who did?"

"Search ME," he offered figuratively and briefly.

"Well, I will." Miss Georgie spoke with a certain decisiveness, and
reaching out a sage-soiled hand, took his gun from the holster at his
hip. He shrank away with a man's instinctive dislike of having anyone
make free with his weapons, but it was a single movement, which he
controlled instantly.

"Stand still, can't you?" he admonished, and kept at work while she
examined the gun with a dexterity and ease of every motion which
betrayed her perfect familiarity with firearms. She snapped the cylinder
into place, sniffed daintily at the end of the barrel, and slipped the
gun back into its scabbard.

"Don't think I doubted your word," she said, casting a slanting glance
up at him without moving her head. "But I wanted to be able to swear
positively, if I should happen to be dragged into the witness-box--I
hope it won't be by the hair of the head!--that your gun has not been
fired this morning. Unless you carry a cleaning rod with you," she
added, "which would hardly be likely."

"You may search me if you like," Good Indian suggested, and for an
engaged young man, and one deeply in love withal, he displayed a
contentment with the situation which was almost reprehensible.

"No use. If you did pack one with you, you'd be a fool not to throw it
away after you had used it. No, I'll swear to the gun as it