ted. He was in a quandary. He did not relish leaving her
with--At that instant Mr. Dale decided Racey's course for him. Mr.
Dale pulled a gun and, still whooping cheerily, shook five shots into
the atmosphere. Then Mr. Dale fumblingly threw out his cylinder and
began to reload.

"I'd better get his gun away from him," Racey said, apologetically,
over his shoulder, as he ran forward.

But the old man would have none of him. He cunningly discerned an
enemy in Racey and tried to shoot him. It was lucky for Racey that the
old fellow was as drunk as a fiddler, or certainly Racey would have
been buried the next day. As it was, the first bullet went wide by a
yard. The second went straight up into the blue, for by then Racey had
the old man's wrist.

"There, there," soothed Racey, "you don't want that gun, Nawsir. Not
you. Le's have it, that's a good feller now."

So speaking he twisted the sixshooter from the old man's grasp and
jammed it into the waistband of his own trousers. The old man burst
into frank tears. Incontinently he slid sidewise from the saddle and
clasped Racey round the neck.

"_I'm wild an' woolly an' full o' fleas
I'm hard to curry below the knees_--"

Thus he carolled loudly two lines of the justly popular song.

"Luke," he bawled, switching from verse to prose, "why didja leave me,
Luke?"

Strangely enough, he did not stutter. Without the slightest difficulty
he leaped that pitfall of the drunken, the letter L.

"Luke," repeated Racey Dawson, struck by a sudden thought. "What's
this about Luke? You mean Luke Tweezy?"

The old man rubbed his shaving-brush adown Racey's neck-muscles. "I
mean Luke Tweezy," he said. "Lots o' folks don't like Luke. They say
he's mean. But they ain't nothin' mean about Luke. He's frien' o'
mine, Luke is."

"Mr. Dawson," said Molly Dale at Racey's elbow, "please go, I can get
him into the house. You can do no good here."

"I can do lots o' good here," declared Racey, who felt sure that he
was on the verge of a discovery. "Somebody is a-trying to jump yore
ranch, and if you'll lemme talk to him I can find out who it is."

"Who--how?" said Miss Dale, stupidly, for, what with the fright
and embarrassment engendered by her father's condition the true
significance of Racey's remark was not immediately apparent.

"Yore ranch," repeated Racey, sharply. "They're a-tryin' to steal it
from you. You lemme talk to him, ma'am. Look out! Grab his bridle!"

Miss Dale se