“What about this man Bannister?” she flung out suddenly, after they had cantered back to the house when the remuda had been inspected. Her abrupt question brought again the short, tense silence she had become used to expect. “He runs sheep about twenty or thirty miles southwest of here,” explained McWilliams, in a carefully casual tone. “So everybody tells me, but it seems to me he spills a good deal of lead on my men,” she answered impatiently. “What’s the trouble?” “Last week he crossed the dead-line with a bunch of five thousand sheep.” “Who draws this dead-line?” “The cattlemen got together and drew it. Your uncle was one of those that marked it off, ma’am.” “And Bannister crossed it?” “Yes, ma’am. Yesterday ’Frisco come on him and one of his herders with a big bunch of them less than fifteen miles from here. He didn’t know it was Bannister, and took a pot-shot at him. ’Course Bannister came back at him, and he got Frisco in the laig.” “Didn’t know it was Bannister? What difference WOULD that make?” she said impatiently. Mac laughed. “What difference would it make, Judd?” Morgan scowled, and the young man answered his own question. “We don’t any of us go out of our way more’n a mile to cross Bannister’s trail,” he drawled. “Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with hardware to catch the eyes of some girl?” she asked, touching with the end of her whip the revolver in the holster strapped to his chaps. His serene, gay smile flashed at her. “Are y’u ordering me to go out and get Ned Bannister’s scalp?” “No, I am not,” she explained promptly. “What I am trying to discover is why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only a man, isn’t he?” A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it chiseled marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy foreman as he answered: “I don’t know what he is, ma’am. He may be one man, or he may be a hundred. What’s more, I ain’t particularly suffering to find out. Fact is, I haven’t lost any Bannisters.” The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a wary silent vigilance sinister in its intensity. “In short, you’re like the rest of the people in this section. You’re afraid.” “Now y’u’re shoutin’, Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to shootin’ off my mouth about Bannister.” “And you, Mr. Morgan?” It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious interest for the answer of the foreman. “Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin’, ma’am?” he asked, with narrowed eyes. “No, you all seemed brave enough then, when you had him eight to one.” “I wasn’t there,” hastily put in McWilliams. “I don’t go gunning for my man without giving him a show.” “I do,” retorted Morgan cruelly. “I’d go if we was fifty to one. We’d ’a’ got him, too, if it hadn’t been for Miss Messiter. ’Twas a chance we ain’t likely to get again for a year.”