“Sure thing,” he agreed. “Has that buyer from Cheyenne turned up yet?” she asked, reverting to business. “Not yet. Do y’u want I should make the cut soon as he comes?” “Don’t you think his price is a little low—twenty dollars from brand up?” “It’s a scrub bunch. We want to get rid of them, anyway. But you’re the doctor,” he concluded slangily. She thought a moment. “We’ll let him have them, but don’t make the cut till I come back. I’m going to ride over to the Twin Buttes.” His admiring eyes followed her as she went toward the pony that was waiting saddled with the rein thrown to the ground. She carried her slim, lithe figure with a grace, a lightness, that few women could have rivaled. When she had swung to the saddle, she half-turned in her seat to call an order to the foreman. “I think, Mac, you had better run up those horses from Eagle Creek. Have Denver and Missou look after them.” “Sure, ma’am,” he said aloud; and to himself: “She’s ce’tainly a thoroughbred. Does everything well she tackles. I never saw anything like it. I’m a Chink if she doesn’t run this ranch like she had been at it forty years. Same thing with her gasoline bronc. That pinto, too. He’s got a bad eye for fair, but she makes him eat out of her hand. I reckon the pinto is like the rest of us—clean mashed.” He put his arms on the corral fence and grew introspective. “Blamed if I know what it is about her. ’Course she’s a winner on looks, but that ain’t it alone. I guess it’s on account of her being such a game little gentleman. When she turns that smile loose on a fellow—well, there’s sure sunshine in the air. And game—why, Ned Bannister ain’t gamer himself.” McWilliams had climbed lazily to the top board of the fence. He was an energetic youth, but he liked to do his thinking at his ease. Now, as his gaze still followed its lodestar, he suddenly slipped from his seat and ran forward, pulling the revolver from its scabbard as he ran. Into his eyes had crept a tense alertness, the shining watchfulness of the tiger ready for its spring. The cause of the change in the foreman of the Lazy D was a simple one, and on its face innocent enough. It was merely that a stranger had swung in casually at the gate of the short stable lane, and was due to meet Miss Messiter in about ten seconds. So far good enough. A dozen travelers dropped in every day, but this particular one happened to be Ned Bannister. From the stable door a shot rang out. Bannister ducked and shouted genially: “Try again.” But Helen Messiter whirled her pony as on a half-dollar, and charged down on the stable. “Who fired that shot?” she demanded, her eyes blazing. The horse-wrangler showed embarrassment. He had found time only to lean the rifle against the wall. “I reckon I did, ma’am. Y’u see—” “Did you get my orders about this feud?” she interrupted crisply. “Yes, ma’am, but—” “Then you may call for your time. When I give my men orders I expect them to obey.”