"It's moving day for you fellows," he announced cheerfully, picking the biggest of the three as the proper subject for the order giving. "You're on the Timanyoni Ditch Company's land, and you know it. Pile into that wagon and fade away!" The big man's answer was a laugh, pointed, doubtless, by the fact that the order giver was palpably unarmed. But on second thought he began to supplement the laugh with an oath. Smith's right arm shot out, and when the blow landed there were only two left to close in on him. In such sudden hostilities the advantages are all with the beginner. Having superior reach and a good bit more skill than either of the two tacklers, Smith held his own until he could get in a few more of the smashing right-handers, but in planting them he took punishment enough to make him Berserk-mad and so practically invincible. There was a fierce mingling of arms, legs, and bodies, sufficiently terrifying, one would suppose, to a young woman sitting calmly in an automobile a hundred yards away; but she neither cried out nor attempted to go to the rescue with the weapon which it seemed as if Smith might be needing. The struggle was short in just proportion to its vigor, and at the end of it two of the trespassers were knocked out, and Smith was dragging the third over to the wagon, into which he presently heaved the man as if he had been a sack of meal. Miss Baldwin, sitting in the car, saw her ally dive into the covered wagon and come out with a pair of Winchesters. Pausing only long enough to smash the guns, one after the other, over the wagon-wheel, he started back after the two other men. They were not waiting to be carried to the wagon; they were up and running in a wide semicircle to reach their hope of retreat unslain, if that might be. It was all very brutal and barbarous, no doubt, but the colonel's daughter was Western born and bred, and she clapped her hands and laughed in sheer enthusiasm when she saw Smith make a show of chasing the circling runners. He did not return to her until after he had pulled up the freshly driven stakes and thrown them away, and by that time the wagon, with the horses lashed to a keen gallop, was disappearing over the crest of the northern ridge. "That's one way to get rid of them, isn't it?" said the emancipated bank man, jocosely, upon taking his place in the car to cramp it for the turn. "Was that something like the notion you had in mind?" "Mercy, no!" she rejoined. And then: "Are you sure you are not hurt?" "Not worth mentioning," he evaded. "Those duffers couldn't hurt anybody, so long as they couldn't get to their guns." "But you have saved the company at your own expense. They will be sure to have you arrested." "We won't cross that bridge until we come to it," he returned. "And, besides, there were no witnesses. _You_ didn't see anything." "Of course, I didn't; not the least little thing in the world!" she agreed, laughing with him.