Once in the ravine, Mr. Masterson flew for his camp, distant not a quarter of a mile. Getting a second rifle, Mr. Masterson bushwhacked those vivacious Cheyennes at the mouth of Mitchell’s Canyon, and killed four, among them the violent individual who had so smote upon him with his own personal gun. The lost rifle, which was as the honour of Mr. Masterson, was recovered; and inasmuch as the four scalps were worth one hundred dollars in Dodge—for which amount they were a lien upon funds heaped together by public generosity to encourage the collection of such mementoes—it might be said that Mr. Masterson was repaid for his wound. He thought so, and in the language of diplomacy regarded the incident as closed. For all that, the business was so frankly hostile in its transaction that Mr. Masterson, young of years yet ripe of Western wisdom, went more than half convinced that the Panhandle, at the time when Mr. Dixon decided to have his fair relatives pay it a visit, did not offer those conditions of a civilised safe refinement for which ladies of culture would look as their due. Mr. Masterson was right. Mr. Dixon’s approval of his sister and her daughter in their descent upon the ’Dobe Walls was weakly foolish. Still, neither Mr. Masterson nor any one else felt free to show this truth to Mr. Dixon, and preparations for the tender invasion went briskly forward. As Mr. Masterson was buying cartridges in the outfitting store, which emporium was one of the mud structures that constituted the ’Dobe Walls, he observed that Mr. Wright was clearing away the furniture from the office, this latter being a small room to the rear of the store. “Going to give it to Billy Dixon’s sister and her girl,” explained Mr. Wright. “When do they hit camp?” asked Mr. Masterson, mildly curious. “Day after to-morrow, I reckon; they’re coming over in a buckboard. Billy says there’s a French party, a Count or something, who is coming with them. It looks like he’s going to marry Billy’s niece. If he shows up, he’ll have to bunk in with you buffalo killers over in Hanrahan’s saloon.” “Just so he don’t talk French to us,” said Mr. Masterson, “I won’t care. I’ve put up with Mexican and Cheyenne, but I draw the line at French.” There were a score of men at the ’Dobe Walls, and Ruth Pemberton confessed to herself that Mr. Masterson was the Admirable Crichton of the array. She secretly admired his powerful shoulders, and compared him—graceful and limber and lithe as a mountain lion—with the tubby Count Banti to that patrician’s disadvantage. Also, Mr. Masterson’s hands and feet were smaller than those of Count Banti.