"On the hoof, yes; but he's buying dressed veal," broke in the cowman, and he smiled grimly at the culprit. "Fifty dollars is cheap for a deer hunter who goes round shooting up the country out of season. He can take his choice--pay for his veal or make a trip to the county seat." "That's talking, Mr. Knowles," approved Gowan. "We'll corral him at Stockchute in that little log calaboose. He'll have a peach of a time talking the jury out of sending him up for rustling." "This is an outrage--rank robbery!" complained Ashton. "Of course you know I will pay rather than be inconvenienced by an interruption of my hunting." He thrust his slender hand into his pocket, and drew it out empty. "Dead broke!" jeered Gowan. Ashton shrugged disdainfully. "I have money at my camp. If that is not enough to pay your blackmail, my valet has gone back to the railway with my guide for a remittance of a thousand dollars, which must have come on a week ago." "Your camp is at the waterhole on Dry Fork," stated Knowles. "Saw a big smoke over there--tenderfoot's fire. Well, it's only five miles, and we can ride down that way. We'll go to your camp." "Ye-es?" murmured Ashton, his ardent eyes on the girl. "Miss--er--Chuckie, it is superfluous to remark that I shall vastly enjoy a cross-country ride with you." "Oh, really!" she replied. Heedless of her ironical tone, he turned a supercilious glance on Knowles. "Yes, and at the same time your papa and his hired man can take advantage of the opportunity to deliver my veal." "What's that?" growled the cowman, flushing hotly. But the girl burst into such a peal of laughter that his scowl relaxed to an uncertain smile. "Well, what's the joke, honey?" he asked. "Oh! oh! oh!" she cried, her blue eyes glistening with mirthful tears. "Don't you see he's got you, Daddy? You didn't sell him his meat on the hoof. You've got to dress and deliver his cutlets." "By--James!" vowed Gowan. "Before I'll butcher for such a knock-kneed tenderfoot I'll see him, in--" "Hold your hawsses, Kid," put in Knowles. "The joke's on me. You go on and look for that bunch of strays, if you want to. But I'm not going to back up when Chuckie says I'm roped in." Gowan looked fixedly at Ashton and the girl, swore under his breath, and swung to the ground. He came down beside the calf with the waddling step of one who has lived in the saddle from early childhood. Knowles joined him, and they set to work on the calf without paying any farther heed to the tenderfoot. Ashton, after fastidiously wiping his hands on a wisp of grass, placed his hunting knife in his belt and his rifle in its saddle sheath. He next picked up his pistol, but after a single glance at the side plate, smashed in by Gowan's first shot, he dropped the ruined weapon and rather hurriedly mounted his pony.