ech with his outright demeanor: "I have a
business offer to make. I won't take a great deal of your time. Ten
minutes will do. Won't you sit down, Mr. Perris?"

She took his tattered hat and pointed out a seat to him, noting, as she
herself sat down, that he was as erect in his chair as he had been
standing. There was something so adventurously restless about Red Perris
that she thought of a thoroughbred fresh from the stable; just as a
blooded hunter is apt to be "too much horse under the saddle," so she
was inclined to feel that Perris was "too much man." Something about him
was always moving. Either his lean fingers fretted on the arm of the
chair, or his foot stirred, or his glance flickered, or his head turned
proudly. Going back to the thoroughbred comparison she decided that
Perris badly needed to have a race or two under his belt before he would
be worked down to normal. She noted another thing: at close hand he was
more handsome.

In the meantime, since she had to talk, it would be pleasanter to find
some indirect approach. One was offered by the fob which hung outside
the watchpocket of his trousers. It was a tarnished, misshapen lump of
metal.

"I can't help asking about that fob," she said. "I've never seen one
even remotely like it."

He fingered it with a singular smile.

"Tell you about it," he said amiably enough. "I was standing by looking
at a large-sized fracas one day and me doing nothing--just as peaceful
as an old plough-hoss--when a gent ups and drills me in the leg. His
bullet had to cut through my holster and then it jammed into my thigh
bone. Put me in bed for a couple of months and when I got out I had the
slug fixed up for a fob. Just so's I could remember the man that shot
me. That's about five years back. I ain't found him yet, but I'm still
remembering, you see?"

He finished the anecdote with a chuckle which died out as he saw her
eyes widen with horror. Five years ago? she was thinking, he must have
been hardly more than a boy. How many other chapters as violent as this
were in his story?

"And--he didn't even offer to pay your doctor bill, I'll wager?"

"Him?" Perris chuckled again. "He'll pay it, some day. It's just
postponed--slow collection--that's all!" He shrugged the thought of it
away, and straightened a little, plainly waiting to hear her business.
But her mind was still only half on her own affairs as she began
talking.

"I have to go into the affairs of our ranch a