Ginger, watching from above, saw the scene unwinding before her like a film. The horse flung up his head and trumpeted wildly and the man, catching up the rifle from the ground beside him, sprang to his feet. The baby deer saw him; it hesitated, staggering, its great eyes wide with terror, its mouth open: before it was the trail, and the lion gaining steadily, inexorably, and to its left, just off the trail--_Man_--Man with the black and shining stick which barked fire and death. “Come!” said the man, softly, too low for the girl to hear, but the fawn heard him. “_Come!_ Come on!” The little creature turned from the trail and ran weakly to the Ranger and collapsed in a quivering heap at his feet. Instantly, above it, his rifle spoke: the lion leaped, twisting, into the air and fell to the ground, writhing, uttering a wild, unearthly cry. “Oh, good work, Ranger!” cried Ginger, half sobbing. She spoke to Ted and plunged heedlessly over the edge of the bank, cutting down without waiting to take the winding trail. She had never seen a surer shot; she had never seen grim tragedy changed in a flash to peace and security, and no scene in a New York play and no passage in a symphony had ever moved her more. Her eyes were wet and her lips were trembling. “Oh, fine, Ranger!” she said, unsteadily. “Good work, Ranger!” And then Dean Wolcott, turning round from his inspection of the fallen lion, faced her. CHAPTER XII DEAN WOLCOTT had many times--on his solitary rides, in his cabin, after the Scout had gone to sleep--rehearsed his next meeting with Ginger McVeagh, planned it, pictured it, set the stage: never had he dreamed of such utterly satisfying scenery, such glorious action; riding a gentled Snort after cattle at Dos Pozos before the respectful gaze of the girl and ’Rome Ojeda was a slow and pallid film beside this! He had wheeled sharply at sound of her voice, and now they were looking at each other. His face flamed scarlet, but the bright color slowly drained out of Ginger’s and left it in golden, creamy pallor. They held the pose for a stunned instant, the man, rifle in hand, standing over the beautiful dead beast, the girl, wet-eyed and breathing fast, erect upon the doctor’s splendid horse. “I didn’t know you were ... at the camp.” He heard himself speaking. “I didn’t know you were the Ranger,” Ginger said, unsteadily. It seemed then as if they had said all there was to say, and a pause stretched out silently between them. It was broken by the Scout who had slipped swiftly from the Mabel horse and was kneeling on the ground, his ecstatic arms about the fawn. It was panting and struggling, its dappled sides heaving painfully in the battle for breath, and its big eyes rolled in sick panic. “Oh, Ranger, can I keep him? Can I keep him and tame him and have him for a pet? Can I?” The boy shrilled into their silence. “Oh, say, _can_ I? I betcher Aunt Lizzie would let me keep a _baby deer_, maybe! We got a back yard! _Can_ I, Ranger?”