ubt, because of
what that fool boy Roberts had done without having yet had to pay for
it.

"That's what I've come to see you about, Wadley. I'm not lookin' for
trouble, but I never ran away from it in my life. No livin' man can lay
on me without hell poppin'. You know it."

"Is that what you came to tell me, Dinsmore?" asked the owner of the
A T O, his mouth set grim and hard.

There was an ugly look on the face of the outlaw, a cold glitter of
anger in his deep-set eyes. "I hear you set the world an' all by that
girl of yours there. Better send her in, Wadley. I'm loaded with
straight talk."

The girl leaned forward in the chair. She looked at him with a flash of
disdainful eyes in which was a touch of feminine ferocity. But she let
her father answer the man.

"Go on," said the old Texan. "Onload what you've got to say, an' then
pull yore freight."

"Suits me, Clint. I'm here to make a bargain with you. Call Ellison off.
Make him let me an' my friends alone. If you don't, we're goin' to
talk--about yore boy Ford." The man's upper lip lifted in a grin. He
looked first at the father, then at the daughter.

There was a tightening of the soft, round throat, but she met his look
without wincing. The pallor of her face lent accent to the contemptuous
loathing of the slender girl.

"What are you goin' to say--that you murdered him, shot him down from
behind?" demanded Wadley.

"That's a lie, Clint. You know who killed him--an' why he did it. Ford
couldn't let the girls alone. I warned him as a friend, but he was
hell-bent on havin' his own way."

The voice of the cattleman trembled. "Some day--I'm goin' to hunt you
down like a wolf for what you did to my boy."

A lump jumped to Ramona's throat. She slipped her little hand into the
big one of her father, and with it went all her sympathy and all her
love.

"You're 'way off, Wadley. The boy was our friend. Why should we shoot
him?" asked the man from the chaparral.

"Because he interfered with you when you robbed my messenger."

The startled eyes of the outlaw jumped to meet those of the cattleman.
For a fraction of a second he was caught off his guard. Then the film of
wary craftiness covered them again.

"That's plumb foolishness, Clint. The Mexican--what's his name?--killed
Ford because he was jealous, an' if it hadn't been for you, he'd 'a'
paid for it long ago. But that ain't what I came to talk about. I'm here
to tell you that I've got evidence to pro