ort to
demand its instant suppression.

Wilson was branding calves in his corral as Y.D. came up. He was alone
save for a girl of eighteen who tended the fire.

Wilson looked up with a hot iron in his hand, nodded, then turned to
apply the iron before it cooled. As he leaned over the calf Y.D. swung
his lariat. It fell true over the Englishman, catching him about the
arms and the middle of the body. Y.D. took a half-hitch of the lariat
about his saddle horn, and the well-trained horse dragged his victim in
the most matter-of-fact manner out of the gate of the corral and into
the open.

Y.D. shortened the line. After the first moment of confused surprise
Wilson tried to climb to his feet, but a quick jerk of the lariat sent
him prostrate again. In a moment Y.D. had taken up all the line, and sat
in his saddle looking down contemptuously upon him.

"Well," he said, "who's too handy with his branding-iron now?"

"You are!" cried Wilson. "Give me a man's chance and I'll thrash you
here and now to prove it."

For answer Y.D. clucked to his horse and dragged his enemy a few yards
farther. "How's the goin', Frank?" he said, in mock cordiality. "Think
you can stand it as far as the crick?"

But at that instant an unexpected scene flashed before Y.D. He caught
just a glimpse of it--just enough to indicate what might happen. The
girl who had been tending the fire was rushing upon him with a red-hot
iron extended before her. Quicker than he could throw himself from the
saddle she had struck him in the face with it.

"You brand our calves!" she cried in a fury of recklessness. "I'll brand
YOU--damn you!"

Y.D. threw himself from the saddle, but in the suddenness of her
onslaught he failed to clear it properly, and stumbled to the ground. In
a moment she was on him and had whipped his gun from his belt.

"Get up!" she said. And he got up.

"Walk to that post, put your arms around it with your back to me, and
stand there." He did so.

The girl kept him covered with the revolver while she released the
lariat that bound her father.

"Are you hurt, Dad?" she inquired solicitously.

"No, just shaken up," he answered, scrambling to his feet.

"All right. Now we'll fix him!"

The girl walked to the next post from Y.D.'s, climbed it leisurely and
seated herself on the top.

"Now, Mr. Y.D.," she said, "you are going to fight like a white man,
with your fists. I'll sit up here and see that there's no dirty work.
First,