Three riders came galloping along the ridge towards the hunter. At sight of his pony the grizzled cowman in the lead signed to his companions and came to a sudden stop behind a clump of service-berry bushes. The others swerved in beside him, the bowlegged young puncher on the right with his hand at his hip. "Jumping Jehosaphat!" he exulted. "We shore have got him, Mr. Knowles, the blasted--" His thin lips closed tight to shut in the oath as he turned his gaze on the lovely flushed face of the girl beside him. When his cold gray eyes met hers they lighted with a glow like that of fire through ice. "You better stay here, Miss Chuckie," he advised. "We're going to cure that rustler." "But, Kid, what if--No, no! wait!" she cried at sight of his drawn Colt's. "Daddy, stop him! The man may not be a rustler." "You heard the shooting," answered the cowman. "Yes, but he may have been after a deer," answered the girl, lifting her lithe figure tiptoe in the stirrups of her man's saddle to peer over the bushes. "Deer?" rejoined the puncher. "Who'd be deer-hunting in July?" "Then a bear. He fired fast enough," remarked the girl. "Not much chance of that round here," said the cowman. "Still, it might be. At any rate, Kid, this time I want you to wait for me to ask questions _before_ you cut loose." "If he don't try any funny business," qualified the puncher. "Course," assented Knowles. "Chuckie, you best stay back here." "Oh, no, Daddy. There's only one man and between you and Kid--" "_Sho!_ Come on, then, if you're set on it. Kid, you circle to the right." The puncher wheeled his horse and rode off around the chaparral. The girl and Knowles, after a short wait, advanced upon the hunter. They were soon within a few yards of him and in plain view. His pony stopped browsing and raised its head to look at them. But the man was stooped over, with his face the other way, and the incessant, reverberating roar of the canyon muffled the tread of their horses on the dusty turf. The puncher crashed through the corner of the thicket and pulled up on the top of the slope immediately opposite the hunter. The latter sprang to his feet. The puncher instantly covered him with his long-barreled revolver and snapped tersely: "Hands up!" "My--ante!" gasped the hunter. "A--a road agent!" But he did not throw up his hands. With the rash bravery of inexperience, he dropped his knife and snatched out his automatic pistol. On the instant the puncher's big revolver roared. The pistol went spinning out of the hunter's hand. Through the smoke of the shot the puncher leveled his weapon. "Put up your hands!--put them up!" screamed the girl, urging her horse forward. The hunter obeyed, none too soon. For several moments he stood rigid, glaring half dazed at the revolver muzzle and the cool hard face behind it. Then slowly he twisted about to see who it was had warned him. The girl had ridden up within a few feet.