The outlaw was instantly at her service, and they sauntered across. In her hand the girl carried a closed umbrella she had been using to keep off the sun. They stood at the gate of the corral looking at the long-legged, shaggy creatures, as wild and as active almost as hill deer. On horseback one could pass to and fro among them without danger, but in a closed corral a man on foot would have taken a chance. Nobody knew this better than Leroy. But the liquor was still in his head, and even when sober he was reckless beyond other men. “They need water,” he said, and with that opened the gate and started for the windmill. He sauntered carelessly across, with never a glance at the dangerous animals among which he was venturing. A great bull pawed the ground lowered its head, and made a rush at the unconscious man. Alice called to him to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with a deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of its rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless. Even as his revolver flashed out from the scabbard the outlaw knew he was too late to save her, for she stood in such a position that he could not hit a vital spot. Suddenly her umbrella opened in the face of the animal. Frightened, it set its feet wide and slithered to a halt so close to her that its chorus pierced the silk of the umbrella. With one hand Leroy swept the girl behind him; with the other he pumped three bullets into the forehead of the bull. Without a groan it keeled over, dead before it reached the ground. Alice leaned against the iron support of the windmill. She was so white that the man expected her to sink down. One glance showed him other cattle pawing the ground angrily. “Come!” he ordered, and, putting an arm round her waist, he ran with her to the gate. Yet a moment, and they were through in safety. She leaned against him helpless for an instant before she had strength to disengage herself. “Thank you. I’m all right now.” “I thought you were going to faint,” he explained. She nodded. “I nearly did.” His face was colorless. “You saved my life.” “Then we’re quits, for you saved mine,” she answered, with a shaken attempt at a smile. He shook his head. “That’s not the same at all. I had to do that, and there was no risk to it. But you chose to save me, to risk your life for mine.” She saw that he was greatly moved, and that his emotion had swept away the effects of the liquid as a fresh breeze does a fog. “I didn’t know I was risking my life. I saw you didn’t see.” “I didn’t think there was a woman alive had the pluck to do it—and for me, your enemy. That what you count me, isn’t it—an enemy?” “I don’t know. I can’t quite think of you as friend, can I?” “And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost.” “Except the danger of yourself,” she said, in low voice, meeting him eye to eye.