ve that Ford was a rustler an'
a hold-up. If it comes to a showdown, we're goin' to tell what we know.
Mebbe you want folks to know what kind of a brother yore girl had.
That's up to you."

Wadley exploded in a sudden fury of passion. "I'll make no bargain with
the murderer of my boy. Get out of here, you damned yellow wolf. I don't
want any truck with you at all till I get a chance to stomp you down
like I would a rattler."

The bad-man bared his fangs. For one moment of horror Ramona thought he
was going to strike like the reptile to which her father had compared
him. He glared at the cattleman, the impulse strong in him to kill and
be done with it. But the other side of him--the caution that had made it
possible for him to survive so long in a world of violent men--held his
hand until the blood-lust passed from his brain.

"You've said a-plenty," he snarled thickly. "Me, I've made my last offer
to you. It's war between me 'n' you from now on."

He turned away and went slouching down the path to the road.

The two on the porch watched him out of sight. The girl had slipped
inside her father's arm and was sobbing softly on his shoulder.

"There, honeybug, now don't you--don't you," Clint comforted. "He cayn't
do us any harm. Ellison's hot on his trail. I'll give him six months,
an' then he's through. Don't you fret, sweetheart. Daddy will look out
for you all right."

"I--I wasn't thinking about me," she whispered.

Both of them were thinking of the dead boy and the threat to blacken
his memory, but neither of them confessed it to the other. Wadley cast
about for something to divert her mind and found it in an unanswered
question of his own.

"You was goin' to tell me how come you to know what he wanted to talk
with me about," the father reminded her.

"You remember that day when Arthur Ridley brought me home?"

He nodded assent.

"One of the Dinsmore gang--the one they call Steve Gurley--met me on the
street. He was drunk, an' he stopped me to tell me about--Ford. I tried
to pass, an' he wouldn't let me. He frightened me. Then Arthur an' Mr.
Roberts came round the corner. Arthur came home with me, an'--you know
what happened in front of McGuffey's store."

The face of the girl had flushed a sudden scarlet. Her father stared at
her in an amazement that gave way to understanding. Through his veins
there crashed a wave of emotion. If he had held any secret grudge
against Tex Roberts, it vanished forever t