“Your target,” she answered, quietly. “Would you like to take another shot at me?” The freckled lad broke out into a gurgle of laughter, at which the black, swarthy man beside him wheeled round in a rage. “What you cacklin’ at, Mac?” he demanded, in a low voice. “Oh, the things I notice,” returned that youth jauntily, meeting the other’s anger without the flicker of an eyelid. “It ain’t healthy to be so noticin’,” insinuated the other. “Y’u don’t say,” came the prompt, sarcastic retort. “If you’re such a darned good judge of health, y’u better be attending to some of your patients.” He jerked a casual thumb over his shoulder toward the bunks on which lay the wounded men. “I shouldn’t wonder but what there might be another patient for me to attend to,” snarled the foreman. “That so? Well, turn your wolf loose when y’u get to feelin’ real devilish,” jeered the undismayed one, strolling forward to assist Miss Messiter to alight. The mistress of the Lazy D had been aware of the byplay, but she had caught neither the words nor their import. She took the offered brown hand smilingly, for here again she looked into the frank eyes of the West, unafraid and steady. She judged him not more than twenty-two, but the school where he had learned of life had held open and strenuous session every day since he could remember. “Glad to meet y’u, ma’am,” he assured her, in the current phrase of the semi-arid lands. “I’m sure I am glad to meet _you_,” she answered, heartily. “Can you tell me where is the foreman of the Lazy D?” He introduced with a smile the swarthy man in the doorway. “This is him ma’am—Mr. Judd Morgan.” Now it happened that Mr. Judd Morgan was simmering with suppressed spleen. “All I’ve got to say is that you had no business mixing up in that shootin’ affair back there. Perhaps you don’t know that the man you saved is Ned Bannister, the outlaw,” was his surly greeting. “Oh, yes, I know that.” “Then what d’ye mean—Who are you, anyway?” His insolent eyes coasted malevolently over her. “Helen Messiter is my name.” It was ludicrous to see the change that came over the man. He had been prepared to bully her; and with a word she had pricked the bubble of his arrogance. He swallowed his anger and got a mechanical smile in working order. “Glad to see you here, Miss Messiter,” he said, his sinister gaze attempting to meet hers frankly “I been looking for you every day.” “But y’u managed to surprise him, after all ma’am,” chuckled Mac. “Where’s yo’ hawss, Reddy?” inquired a tall young man, who had appeared silently in the doorway of the bunkhouse. Reddy pinked violently. “I had an accident, Denver,” he explained. “This lady yere she—” “Scooped y’u right off yore hawss. Y’u _don’t_ say,” sympathized Mac so breathlessly that even Reddy joined in the chorus of laughter that went up at his expense. The young woman thought to make it easy for him, and suggested an explanation.