"Guess I'd better step down there," he said. "Looks to me like the buckaroos I met huntin' strays. Might be I could set 'em straight." "I might as well go, too," Harry decided. She had heard her brother say, "Prove it if you can. It's absurd on the face of it." "Do they think we've been stealing their critters?" she asked in a low voice as they hurried forward, and she thought of the calf she had brought inside to feed. "It's more likely some one has been stealing ours. The last time we went through the herd two were missing, and that was quite a while ago." "Don't tell them so," Garnett cautioned her; "let them do the talkin'." At sound of their steps Rob turned to them. "See here, Harry. These fellows say you've shot one of their cows and run in her calf. They say they've had positive information from a fellow who saw you shoot." Harry turned white. For a second there was no sound except the creaking of a saddle as the ponies breathed. The two _vaqueros_, one a half-breed Indian, the other the pink-faced man whom Harry had met on the range, stared at her fixedly. Garnett apparently kept his eyes fixed on space, but he missed nothing. Fear had not blanched Harry's cheeks. Anger had, and the next instant they flushed scarlet. "Who saw me shooting?" she cried. "I haven't had a gun in my hands this summer except to warn poachers off our land." "Poachers?" the pink-faced rider echoed inquiringly. "Yes; hunters who come inside our fence to steal sage hen and grouse. They won't stop merely for being asked. You have to fire a rifle over their heads to frighten them. Then they understand that 'no-shooting' signs mean what they say." Her voice trembled a little, but she held her head defiantly and faced the "cow-puncher" with steady eyes. He merely shook his head and smiled incredulously. "You shore are brave, ma'am. Tother day you was doggin' off Ludlum's stock like you owned the hull range, and you told me you'd shoot every one of 'em now--that is, if it suited ye; and now you're gunnin' for white men becus they're pickin' up a few birds what ain't yours nohow. I guess you wouldn't find no trouble pluggin' a cow critter if you thought you could rustle her calf." "Is that so, Harry?" Rob asked quietly. "Did you threaten to shoot Ludlum's stock?" "I did. After what this rider threatened," she admitted, and related the whole occurrence. "As for bringing in a deserted calf," she added. "I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge I did it. I wasn't going to leave it to starve, no matter whose it was. When you take it back, you might ask Ludlum to return our steers that his scrubs have taken off with them; but when it comes to shooting a cow, his or anybody's, well, I didn't. That's all." "Looks like you'd have to hunt your critters further on." Garnett's words showed his relief, and Rob's sudden smile told how great his suspense had been; but that relief lasted only a moment.