"Guess he had made you fighting mad," she bantered; but under her seeming levity he perceived a change in her manner towards him immensely gratifying to his humbled self-esteem. "At first I was just a trifle apprehensive--" He hesitated, and suddenly burst out with a candid confession--"No, not a trifle! Really, I was horribly frightened!" This was more than the girl had hoped from him. She nodded and smiled in open approval. "You had a good right to be frightened. I don't blame you for spurring that way. Look. It wasn't only one shot that came close. There's a neat hair brand on your hawss's hip that wasn't there yesterday." "Must have been the shot just before we took the bank," said Ashton, twisting about to look at the streak cut by the bullet. "The first was the only other one that didn't go higher." "But what did the man look like?" questioned Miss Isobel. "I can't imagine who--Can it be that your guide has a grudge against you on account of his pay?" "I wouldn't have thought it possible before yesterday, though he was a surly fellow and inclined to be insolent." "All such men are apt to be with tenderfeet," she remarked, permitting herself a half twinkle of her sweet eyes. "But I should have thought yours would have kept on going. Whatever you may have owed him, he had no right to steal your outfit. He must be a real badman, if it's true he is the party who did this shooting." "I shouldn't be at all surprised," agreed Ashton. In her concern over him she looked so charming that he would have agreed if she had told him the moon was made of green cheese. She shook her head thoughtfully, and went on: "I can't imagine even one of our badmen trying to murder you that way. Their usual course would be to come up to you, face to face, pick a quarrel, and beat you to it on the draw. But whoever the cowardly scoundrel is, we'll turn out the boys, and either run him down or out of the country." "If it's my guide, he probably is running already." "I hope so," replied the girl. "You do! Don't you want him punished?" exclaimed Ashton. "Of course, but you see I don't want Kid to--to cut another notch on his Colt's." "I must say, I cannot see how that--" "You could if you realized how kind and good he has been to me all these years. Do you know, when I first came West, I couldn't tell a jackrabbit from a burro. Daddy had told me that each had big ears, and I got them mixed. And actually I didn't know the off from the nigh side of a hawss!" "But we--er--have horses and riding-schools in the East," put in Ashton. She parried the indirect question without seeming to notice it. "You proved that yesterday, coming down from High Mesa. I felt sure I would have you pulling leather." "Pulling leather?" he asked. "You see, I own to my tenderfootness."