"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred. He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled significantly. She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him. "And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?" "Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them." "You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not for the sake of the coyote." "I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said that. Please!" "All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that hurts." "I don't think it." "You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't dodge. You know you think I'm a bully." "I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing. "Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the story?" "No. I'll listen, if you will tell me." Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of it, at least--I sure enough deserve." "I wonder," she mused, smiling at him. Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even though, at the same time, it terrified her. Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far out, either," he added grimly. "Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too." He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" "Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently. "How do you know there's another side?" "I don't know how, but I do." "I reckon it must be a right puny one." "It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?" "You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me." "You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with me, too." "You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he said it made the exclamation half a groan.