rst.

"Honey said you was waylaid and robbed or killed--both, we took it, from
her account. How'd yuh come to get the best of it so quick?"

"Why, his horse got tangled up in the rope and fell down, and fell on
top of him," Bud explained cheerfully. "I was bringing him in. He's
a bad citizen, I should judge, but he didn't do me any damage, as it
turned out, so I don't know what to do with him. I'll just turn him over
to you, I think."

"Hell! I don't want him," Dave protested. "I'll pass him along to the
sheriff--he may know something about him. Nelse and Charlie, you take
and run him in to Crater and turn him over to Kline. You tell Kline what
he done--or tried to do. Was he alone, Bud?"

"He had a partner up on the ridge, so far off I couldn't swear to him if
I saw him face to face. I took a shot at him, and I think I nicked him.
He ducked, and there weren't any more rifle bullets coming my way."

"You nicked him with your six-shooter? And him so far off you couldn't
recognize him again?" Dave looked at Bud sharply. "That's purty good
shootin', strikes me."

"Well, he stood up against the sky-line, and he wasn't more than
seventy-five yards," Bud explained. "I've dropped antelope that far,
plenty of times. The light was bad, this evening."

"Antelope," Dave repeated meditatively, and winked at his men. "All
right, Bud--we'll let it stand at antelope. Boys, you hit for Crater
with this fellow. You ought to make it there and back by tomorrow noon,
all right."

Nelse took the lead rope from Bud and the two started off up the creek,
meaning to strike the road from Little Lost to Crater, the county seat
beyond Gold Gap mountains. Bud rode on to the ranch with his boss, and
tried to answer Dave's questions satisfactorily without relating his own
prowess or divulging too much of Stopper's skill; which was something of
a problem for his wits.

Honey ran out to meet him and had to be assured over and over that he
was not hurt, and that he had lost nothing but his temper and the ride
home with her in the moonlight. She was plainly upset and anxious that
he should not think her cowardly, to leave him that way.

"I looked back and saw a man throwing his rope, and you--it looked as if
he had dragged you off the horse. I was sure I saw you falling. So I ran
my horse all the way home, to get Uncle Dave and the boys," she told
him tremulously. And then she added, with her tantalizing half smile, "I
believe that horse of m