"Well, well!" she rallied. "I should have thought that even to the innocent gaze of a tenderfoot--Let me hasten to explain that the common or garden variety of cowshepherd is to be distinguished in many respects from his predecessor of the Texas trail." "Texas trail?" he rejoined. "Now I know you're trying to string me. This Gowan can't be much older than I am." The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: "He is only twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the cattle frontier." "Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?" "In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is past--the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt's, and short lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins." "Surely you cannot mean that this--You called him 'Kid.'" "Kid Gowan," she confirmed. "Yes, he holds to the old traditions even in that. There are six notches on the hilt of his 'gun,' if you count the two little ones he nicked for his brace of Utes." "What! He is a real Indian fighter, like Kit Carson?" "Oh, no, it was merely a band of hide hunters that came over the line from Utah, and Mr. Gowan helped the game warden run them back to their reservation." "He actually killed two of them?" "Yes," replied the girl, her gravity deepening to a concerned frown. "The worst of it is that I'm not altogether certain it was necessary. Men out here, as a rule, think much too little of the life of an Indian." "Ah!" murmured Ashton. "Two Indians. But didn't you speak of six notches?" "Six," confirmed the girl, her brow partly clearing. "The others were different. Three were rustlers. The sheriff's posse overtook them. Both sides were firing. Kid circled around and shot three. He happened to have a long-range rifle. Daddy says they threw up their hands when the first one fell; but Kid explained to me that he was too far away to see it." "Ah!" murmured Ashton the second time, and he put up his hand to the hole in the front of his sombrero. "The last was two years ago," went on the girl. "There was a dispute over a maverick. Kid was tried and acquitted on his plea of self-defense. There were no witnesses. He claimed that the other man drew first. Two empty shells were found in the other man's revolver, and only one in Kid's. That cleared him." Ashton took off his hat and stared at the holes where the heavy forty-four bullet had gone in and gone out. He was silent. "You see, poor Kid has been unfortunate," remarked the girl, as she headed her pony down over the edge of the mesa. "That time with the rustlers, all the posse were firing, and he just happened to be the one that got the best aim; and the time with the Indians, I'm sure he did not shoot to kill. It just happened that way. He told me so himself."