“It wasn’t your fault you didn’t kill him, Mr. Morgan,” she said, looking hard at him. “You may be interested to know that your last shot missed him only about six inches, and me about four.” “I didn’t know who you were,” he sullenly defended. “I see. You only shoot at women when you don’t know who they are.” She turned her back on him pointedly and addressed herself to McWilliams. “You can tell the men working on this ranch that I won’t have any more such attacks on this man Bannister. I don’t care what or who he is. I don’t propose to have him murdered by my employés. Let the law take him and hang him. Do you hear?” “I ce’tainly do, and the boys will get the word straight,” he replied. “I take it since yuh are giving your orders through Mac, yuh don’t need me any longer for your foreman,” bullied Morgan. “You take it right, sir,” came her crisp reply. “McWilliams will be my foreman from to-day.” The man’s face, malignant and wolfish, suddenly lost its mask. That she would so promptly call his bluff was the last thing he had expected. “That’s all right. I reckon yuh think yuh know your own business, but I’ll put it to yuh straight. Long as yuh live you’ll be sorry for this.” And with that he wheeled away. She turned to her new foreman and found him less radiant than she could have desired. “I’m right sorry y’u did that. I’m afraid y’u’ll make trouble for yourself,” he said quietly. “Why?” “I don’t know myself just why.” He hesitated before adding: “They say him and Bannister is thicker than they’d ought to be. It’s a cinch that he’s in cahoots somehow with that Shoshone bunch of bad men.” “But—why, that’s ridiculous. Only this morning he was trying to kill Bannister himself.” “That’s what I don’t just savvy. There’s a whole lot about that business I don’t get next to. I guess Bannister is at the head of them. Everybody seems agreed about that. But the whole thing is a tangle of contradiction to me. I’ve milled it over a heap in my mind, too.” “What are some of the contradictions?” “Well, here’s one right off the bat, as we used to say back in the States. Bannister is a great musician, they claim; fine singer, and all that. Now I happen to know he can’t sing any more than a bellowing yearling.” “How do you know?” she asked, her eyes shining with interest. “Because I heard him try it. ’Twas one day last summer when I was out cutting trail of a bunch of strays down by Dead Cow Creek. The day was hot, and I lay down behind a cottonwood and dropped off to sleep. When I awakened it didn’t take me longer’n an hour to discover what had woke me. Somebody on the other side of the creek was trying to sing. It was ce’tainly the limit. Pretty soon he come out of the brush and I seen it was Bannister.” “You’re sure it was Bannister?” “If seeing is believing, I’m sure.” “And was his singing really so bad?” “I’d hate ever to hear worse.” “Was he singing when you saw him?”