“Hell! I don't want him,” Dave protested. “I'll pass him along to the sheriff--he may know something about him. Nelse and Charlie, you take and run him in to Crater and turn him over to Kline. You tell Kline what he done--or tried to do. Was he alone, Bud?” “He had a partner up on the ridge, so far off I couldn't swear to him if I saw him face to face. I took a shot at him, and I think I nicked him. He ducked, and there weren't any more rifle bullets coming my way.” “You nicked him with your six-shooter? And him so far off you couldn't recognize him again?” Dave looked at Bud sharply. “That's purty good shootin', strikes me.” “Well, he stood up against the sky-line, and he wasn't more than seventy-five yards,” Bud explained. “I've dropped antelope that far, plenty of times. The light was bad, this evening.” “Antelope,” Dave repeated meditatively, and winked at his men. “All right, Bud--we'll let it stand at antelope. Boys, you hit for Crater with this fellow. You ought to make it there and back by tomorrow noon, all right.” Nelse took the lead rope from Bud and the two started off up the creek, meaning to strike the road from Little Lost to Crater, the county seat beyond Gold Gap mountains. Bud rode on to the ranch with his boss, and tried to answer Dave's questions satisfactorily without relating his own prowess or divulging too much of Stopper's skill; which was something of a problem for his wits. Honey ran out to meet him and had to be assured over and over that he was not hurt, and that he had lost nothing but his temper and the ride home with her in the moonlight. She was plainly upset and anxious that he should not think her cowardly, to leave him that way. “I looked back and saw a man throwing his rope, and you--it looked as if he had dragged you off the horse. I was sure I saw you falling. So I ran my horse all the way home, to get Uncle Dave and the boys,” she told him tremulously. And then she added, with her tantalizing half smile, “I believe that horse of mine could beat Smoky or Skeeter, if I was scared that bad at the beginning of a race.” Bud, in sheer gratitude for her anxiety over him, patted Honey's hand and told her she must have broken the record, all right, and that she had done exactly the right thing. And Honey went to bed happy that night. CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EVEN MUSHROOMS HELP Bud wanted to have a little confidential talk with Marian. He hoped that she would be willing to tell him a great deal more than could be written on one side of a cigarette paper, and he was curious to hear what it was. On the other hand, he wanted somehow to let her know that he was anxious to help her in any way possible. She needed help, of that he was sure.