Mrs. Mason gave him a wise look. "Of course, you aren't, not yet. It's gratitude and appreciation, now. But a man of your make-up could hardly help caring for a girl like Tot--after she has had a little polish, you know. That was a boyish affair you had with Alice, a sort of flashlight affair; you hadn't been much used to women, and she dazzled you. You'll see the day, dear boy, when you'll be quite thankful that Alice wouldn't have you. Now go straight off to bed, Arnold!" "You'll call me if she gets worse?" The colonel's wife promised. Wolfe went to his room. He shook his head and smiled a trifle bitterly at that which Mrs. Mason had said concerning "a flashlight affair." He thought she didn't understand. But she did. * * * * * At noon of the next day, Sheriff Alvin Starnes, tall and lank, brave and illiterate, rose from his office chair and went to a telephone instrument on the wall. He asked for Colonel Mason's residence. "This is Sheriff Starnes," he growled into the transmitter. "Is the young lady still improvin'?" "Doing finely, thank you, Sheriff." It was Little Buck Wolfe talking. "The colonel told you about her, eh?" "This mornin', sir. I think I'd better go after Mayfield, Mr. Mason. I ain't forgot that I promised to let you run that end o' the county, on account o' your kinfolks; but Mayfield ain't your kinfolks." "Go ahead!" laughed Wolfe. "Hope you catch him." "Startin' right now," replied Starnes. "Goo'-by!" He hung up the receiver, rang off, crossed the room and took his broad-brimmed black hat from a nail that had been half driven up in the corner of a board lettered boldly: NO SWARING ALOUD. He buckled on a revolver-laden cartridge-belt, and took a pair of buckskin riding gloves from a drawer of his desk. Just then there came a slow, heavy rapping at the door, the rapping of a rifle's butt. [Illustration] The sheriff's lean face showed signs of annoyance. He went to the door. Two men stood a few feet from the steps. One of them was loosely-built, angular, and bullet-headed; the other was a big, square-chested man with sunburned black hair and beard. Only the big man was armed. "You're the high sheriff o' this here county; hey?" said Alex Singleton. "I am, sir." "Then you arrest this here rattlesnake--take him off o' my hands afore I lose what little holt I've got on myself and put out his blasted light!" old Singleton roared. His voice was hoarse, rasping, like the sound a dull file makes when drawn across a thin steel edge. "He tried his best to kill a man I call my friend, Little Buck Wolfe; and the damned yaller dawg"--he was blind with rage, choking full--"he struck the one and only gyurl I've got----" "And arrest him, too," Mayfield broke in desperately--"arrest him, too, fo'----" "Shet yore mouth!" cried Singleton. His eyes blazed gloriously now, and his voice held a note of triumph. He wheeled and faced Sheriff Alvin Starnes again.