fanned away his trigger
finger." He added reminiscently:

"A good boy, too, Neil was once. We used to punch together on the
Hashknife. A straight-up rider, the kind a fellow wants when Old Man
Trouble comes knocking at the door. Well, I reckon he's a miscreant now,
all right."

"They knew YOU--at least two of them did."

"I've been pirootin' around this country, boy and man, for fifteen
years. I ain't responsible for every yellow dog that knows me," he
drawled.

"And I noticed that when you told them not to rob the children and not
to touch me they did as you said."

"Hypnotism," he suggested, with a smile.

"So, not being a child, I put two and two together and draw an
inference."

He seemed to be struggling with his mirth. "I see you do. Well, ma'am,
I've been most everything since I hit the West, but this is the first
time I've been taken for a train robber."

"I didn't say that," she cried quickly.

"I think you mentioned an inference." The low laugh welled out of him
and broke in his face. "I've been busy on one, too. It's a heap nearer
the truth than yours, Miss Mackenzie."

Her startled eyes and the swift movement of her hand toward her heart
showed him how nearly he had struck home, how certainly he had shattered
her cool indifference of manner.

He leaned forward, so close that even in the roar of the train his low
whisper reached her. "Shall I tell you why the hold-ups didn't find more
money on your father or in the express car, Miss Mackenzie?"

She was shaken, so much so that her agitation trembled on her lips.

"Shall I tell you why your hand went to your breast when I first
mentioned that the train was going to be held up, and again when your
father's eyes were firing a mighty pointed question at you?"

"I don't know what you mean," she retorted, again mistress of herself.

Her gallant bearing compelled his admiration. The scornful eyes, the
satirical lift of the nostrils, the erect, graceful figure, all flung
a challenge at him. He called himself hard names for putting her on the
rack, but the necessity to make her believe in him was strong within
him.

"I noticed you went right chalky when I announced the hold-up, and I
thought it was because you were scared. That was where I did you an
injustice, ma'am, and you can call this an apology. You've got sand.
If it hadn't been for what you carry in the chamois skin hanging on the
chain round your neck you would have enjoyed every minute