“It doesn’t much matter what you say. What do you do?” asked Helen, impatiently. “Do you lie down and let Mr. Bannister and his kind drive their sheep over you?” “Do we, Soapy?” grinned Texas. Yet it seemed to her his smile was not quite carefree. “I’m not a cowman myself,” explained Soapy to the girl. “Nor do I run sheep. I—” “Tell Miss Messiter what yore business is, Soapy,” advised Yorky from the end of the table, with a mouthful of biscuit swelling his cheeks. Soapy crushed the irrepressible Yorky with a look, but that young man hit back smilingly. “Soapy, he sells soap, ma’am. He’s a sorter city salesman, I reckon.” “I should never have guessed it. Mr. Sothern does not _look_ like a salesman,” said the girl, with a glance at his shrewd, hard, expressionless face. “Yes, ma’am, he’s a first-class seller of soap, is Mr. Sothern,” chuckled the cow-puncher, kicking his friends gayly under the table. “You can see I never sold _him_ any, Miss Messiter,” came back Soapy, sorrowfully. All this was Greek to the young lady from Kalamazoo. How was she to know that Mr. Sothern had vended his soap in small cubes on street corners, and that he wrapped bank notes of various denominations in the bars, which same were retailed to eager customers for the small sum of fifty cents, after a guarantee that the soap was good? His customers rarely patronized him twice; and frequently they used bad language because the soap wrapping was not as valuable as they had expected. This was manifestly unfair, for Mr. Sothern, who made no claims to philanthropy, often warned them that the soap should be bought on its merits, and not with an eye single to the premium that might or might not accompany the package. “I started to tell you, ma’am, when that infant interrupted, that the cowmen don’t aim to quit business yet a while. They’ve drawn a dead-line, Miss Messiter.” “A dead-line?” “Yes, ma’am, beyond which no sheep herder is to run his bunch.” “And if he does?” the girl asked, open eyed. “He don’t do it twict, ma’am. Why don’t you pass the fritters to Miss Messiter, Slim?” “And about this Bannister. Who is he?” Her innocent question seemed to ring a bell for silence; seemed to carry with it some hidden portent that stopped idle conversation as a striking clock that marks the hour of an execution. The smile that had been gay grew grim, and men forgot the subject of their light, casual talk. It was Sothern that answered her, and she observed that his voice was grave, his face studiously without expression. “Mr. Bannister, ma’am, is a sheepman.” “So I understood, but—” Her eyes traveled swiftly round the table, and appraised the sudden sense of responsibility that had fallen on these reckless, careless frontiersmen. “I am wondering what else he is. Really, he seems to be the bogey man of Gimlet Butte.”