For a single relaxing instant the Outlaw glanced back across his narrow shoulder. "This-here Lost Man ain't got any tact," he sighed. "Put that gun down!" cried Bretton. "Why, the poor old chap's twice your age!" "And--twice my size," confided the Out law. But he lowered the gun at least an inch. "But what's it all about?" insisted Bretton. Very gloweringly Lost Man essayed to be the real explainer. [145] "He was silly about a crab," glowered Lost Man. "'Tweren't, either, silly," argued the Outlaw. "He stepped on a crab and hurted it. There ain't no call to hurt nothing, I say." "Nice one to talk, you are!" snarled Lost Man. "You--you man-killer, you!" Quicker than a flash the Outlaw raised his gun again. "I ain't no man-killer," he droned. "I ain't never in my life killed no man. What I killed was two men--both coming at me double. There ain't no man living, I tells you, more peaceful than me. . . . But when I'm moonshining"--in an instant the flaccid lips had tightened into a single merciless line--"but when I'm moonshining I don't stand no monkeyshining!" "Oh, cut it out!" said Jaffrey Bretton. "Here come the ladies!" "I forgot the ladies!" collapsed the Outlaw. Blushing like a schoolboy he tucked his gun back in his belt, and began to tinker with the engine. But the ladies, it seemed, were not over-quick about coming. [146] A little impatiently Jaffrey Bretton turned back to meet them. The Brown Khaki Lady was frankly scared. But Daphne, though white as a sheet, admitted no trepidation. "Oh, don't you think he's too dangerous to go with?" shivered the Brown Khaki Lady. "Nonsense!" laughed Jaffrey Bretton. "He's as gentle as a lamb." "If you handle him right," supplemented the Brown Khaki Lady. "Isn't most everything dangerous," laughed Jaffrey Bretton, "if you don't handle it right? A fifth-story window? A knife and fork? A blank sheet of paper? The buttons on your coat? Yet only a fool jumps through the fifth-story window, or tries to cram the sheet of paper into his eye, or--" With a gasp of apprehension he turned suddenly on Daphne. "You _are_ white!" he said. Who was this woman--what was she to her father? Twice Daphne opened her lips to cry out the question--the accusation, the bewilderment that was consuming her. Then, with a really heroic effort, she swung in her tracks and ran off at full speed toward the launch. [147] "Hurry up, you--you slow-pokes!" she turned and called back when neither the quiver of her lips nor the blur of her eyes could be gleaned through the distance. In another five minutes, with a great churn of water, a great chug of engine, a great stench of gasoline, the little old rickety launch was on its way.