you'd swap places with me, Sam."

"Sure. I'd a heap ruther sit outside. Say, that drummer hadn't ought to
worry Miss Ramona. She's not feelin' very peart, anyhow. I reckon she
set the world an' all by that scalawag brother of hers."

"He's not goin' to trouble her any more, Sam."

The ex-Confederate looked at the narrow-flanked young man with an alert
question in his eye. If "Tex" Roberts was going to take a hand, the
salesman was certainly riding for a fall.

The salesman had made up his mind to sit beside Miss Wadley for the rest
of the journey. He emerged from the dining-room at her heels and was
beside her to offer a hand into the stage.

Ramona gave him a look of reproach and entreaty. She was near tears. The
man from St. Louis smiled confidently.

"I know a good thing when I see it," he whispered. "I'll ride beside you
and keep off the rough-necks, Miss Wadley."

A heavy heel smashed down on the toes of his neat shoe and crunched
round. A hard elbow bumped up forcefully against his chin as if by
accident. A muscular hand caught the loose fat of his plump stomach and
tightened like a vise. The dapper salesman opened his mouth in a shriek
of pain.

"Indigestion?" asked the Ranger sympathetically, and his sinewy fingers
twisted in the cushion of flesh they gripped. "I'll get you somethin'
good for it in a minute."

Roberts flung the man back and rearranged the seating inside so that the
drover sat beside Ramona as before dinner. Then he tucked an arm under
that of the St. Louis man and led him back into the stage station. The
salesman jerked along beside him unhappily. His wrist, wrenched by
Roberts in a steady pressure of well-trained muscles, hurt exquisitely.
When at last he was flung helplessly into a chair, tears of pain and
rage filled his eyes. Never in the course of a cushioned and pampered
life had he been so manhandled.

"My God, you brute, you've killed me!" he sobbed.

"Sho! I haven't begun yet. If you take the stage to-day to Tascosa I'm
goin' to sit beside you real friendly, an' we'll play like we been doin'
all the way in to town. It's just my way of bein' neighborly."

"I'll have the law of you for this," the city man howled, uncertain
which of his injuries to nurse first.

"I would," agreed the Texan. "Well, so long, if you ain't comin'."

Roberts moved back with long, easy stride to the stage. He nodded to the
driver.

"All ready, Hank. The drummer ain't feelin' well. He'll stay h