the villain in the chair, apparently to the ceiling. “Dear Ned, he always was the soul of honor. I'll have those lines carved on his tombstone.”
“You see! He is already bragging that he means to kill you,” said the girl.
“I shall go armed,” the sheepman answered.
“Yes, but he will take you into the mountain fastnesses, where the men that serve him will do his bidding. What is one man among so many?”
“Two men, ma'am,” corrected the foreman.
“What's that?” The outlaw broke off the snatch of opera he was singing to slew his head round at McWilliams.
“I said two. Any objections, seh?”
“Yes. That wasn't in the contract.”
“We're giving y'u surplusage, that's all. Y'u wanted one of us, and y'u get two. We don't charge anything for the extra weight,” grinned Mac.
“Oh, Mac, will you go with him?” cried Helen, with shining eyes.
“Those are my present intentions, Miss Helen,” laughed her foreman.
Whereat Nora emerged from the background and flung herself on him. “Y'u can't go, Jim! I won't have you go!” she cried.
The young man blushed a beautiful pink, and accepted gladly this overt evidence of a reconciliation. “It's all right, honey. Don't y'u think two big, grown-up men are good to handle that scalawag? Sho! Don't y'u worry.”
“Miss Nora can come, too, if she likes,” suggested he of the Shoshones. “Looks like we would have quite a party. Won't y'u join us, too, Miss Messiter, according to the original plan?” he said, extending an ironical invitation.
“I think we had better cut it down to me alone. We'll not burden your hospitality, sir,” said the sheepman.
“No, sir, I'm in on this. Whyfor can't I go?” demanded Jim.
Bannister, the outlaw, eyed him unpleasantly. “Y'u certainly can so far as I am concerned. I owe y'u one, too, Mr. McWilliams. Only if y'u come of your own free will, as y'u are surely welcome to do, don't holler if y'u're not so welcome to leave whenever y'u take a notion.”
“I'll try and look out for that. It's settled, then, that we ride together. When do y'u want to start?”
“We can't go any sooner than right now. I hate to take these young men from y'u, lady, but, as I said, I'll send them back in good shape. Adios, senorita. Don't forget to whom y'u belong.” He swaggered to the door and turned, leaning against the jamb with one hand again it. “I expect y'u can say those lovey-dov good-byes without my help. I'm going into the yard. If y'u want to y'u can plug me in the back through the window,” he suggested, with a sneer.
“As y'u would us under similar circumstances,” retorted his cousin.
“Be with y'u in five minutes,” said the foreman.
“Don't hurry. It's a long good-bye y'u're saying,” returned his enemy placidly.
Nora and the young man who belonged to her followed him from the room, leaving Bannister and his hostess alone.
“Shall I ever see you again?” Helen murmured.
“I think so,” the sheepman answered. “The truth is that this opportunity falls pat. Jim and have been wanting to meet those men who are under my cousin's influence and have a talk with them. There is no question but that the gang is disintegrating, and I believe that if we offer to mediate between its members and the Government something might be done to stop the outrages that have been terrorizing this country. My cousin can't be reached, but I believe the rest of them, or, at least a part, can be induced either to surrender or to flee the country. Anyhow, we want to try it.”
“But the danger?” she breathed.
“Is less than y'u think. Their leader has not anywhere nearly the absolute power he had a few months ago. They would hardly dare do violence to a peace envoy.”
“Your cousin would. I don't believe he has any scruples.”
“We shall keep an eye on him. Both of us will not sleep at the same time. Y'u may depend on me to bring your foreman safely back to y'u,” he smiled.
“Oh, my foreman!”
“And your foreman's friend,” he added. “I have the best of reasons for wanting to return alive. I think y'u know them. They have to do with y'u, Miss Helen.”
It had come at last, but, womanlike, she evaded the issue her heart had sought. “Yes, I know. You think it would not be fair to throw away your life in this foolish manner after I have saved it for you—how many times was it you said?” The blue eyes lifted with deceptive frankness to the gray ones.
“No, that isn't my reason. I have a better one than that. I love y'u, girl, more than anything in this world.”
“And so you try to prove it to me by running into a trap set for you to take your life. That's a selfish kind of love, isn't it? Or it would be if I loved you.”
“Do y'u love me, Helen?”
“Why should I tell you, since you don't love me enough to give up this quixotic madness?”
“Don't y'u see, dear, I can't give it up?”
“I see you won't. You care more for your pride than for me.”
“No, it isn't that. I've got to go. It isn't that I want to leave y'u, God knows. But I've given my word, and I must keep it. Do y'u want me to be a quitter, and y'u so game yourself? Do y'u want it to go all over this cattle country that I gave my word and took it back because I lost my nerve?”
“The boy that takes a dare isn't a hero, is he! There's a higher courage that refuses to be drawn into such foolishness, that doesn't give way to the jeers of the empty headed.”
“I don't think that is a parallel case. I'm sorry, we can't see this alike, but I've got to go ahead the way that seems to me right.”
“You're going to leave me, then, to go with that man?”
“Yes, if that's the way y'u have to put it.” He looked at her sorrowfully, and added gently: “I thought you would see it. I thought sure you would.”
But she could not bear that he should leave her so, and she cried out after him. “Oh, I see it. I know you must go; but I can't bear it.” Her head buried itself in his coat. “It isn't right—it isn't a—a square deal that you should go away now, the very minute you belong to me.”
A happy smile shone in his eyes. “I belong to you, do I? That's good hearing, girl o' mine.” His arm went round her and he stroked the black head softly. “I'll not be gone long, dear. Don't y'u worry about me. I'll be back with y'u soon; just as soon as I have finished this piece of work I have to do.”
“But if you should get—if anything should happen to you?”
“Nothing is going
