The foreman’s sentence was never finished. From a clump of bushes a hundred yards away came the crack of a rifle. A bullet sang past, cutting a line that left on one side of it Bannister, on the other Miss Messiter and her foreman. Instantly the two men slid from their horses on the farther side, dragged down the young woman behind the cover of the broncos, and arranged the three ponies so as to give her the greatest protection available. Somehow the weapons that garnished them had leaped to their hands before their feet touched the ground. “That coyote isn’t one of our men. I’ll back that opinion high,” said McWilliams promptly. “Who is he?” the girl whispered. “That’s what we’re going to find out pretty soon,” returned Bannister grimly. “Chances are it’s me he is trying to gather. Now, I’m going to make a break for that cottonwood. When I go, you better run up a white handkerchief and move back from the firing-line. Turn Buck loose when you leave. He’ll stay around and come when I whistle.” He made a run for it, zigzagging through the sage-brush so swiftly as to offer the least certain mark possible for a sharpshooter. Yet twice the rifle spoke before he reached the cottonwood. Meanwhile Mac had fastened the handkerchief of his mistress on the end of a switch he had picked up and was edging out of range. His tense, narrowed gaze never left the bush-clump from which the shots were being pumped, and he was careful during their retreat to remain on the danger side of the road, in order to cover Helen. “I guess Bannister’s right. He don’t want us, whoever he is.” And even as he murmured it, the wind of a bullet lifted his hat from his head. He picked it up and examined it. The course of the bullet was marked by a hole in the wide brim, and two more in the side and crown. “He ce’tainly ventilated it proper. I reckon, ma’am, we’ll make a run for it. Lie low on the pinto’s neck, with your haid on the off side. That’s right. Let him out.” A mile and a half farther up the road Mac reined in, and made the Indian peace-sign. Two dejected figures came over the hill and resolved themselves into punchers of the Lazy D. Each of them trailed a rifle by his side. “You’re a fine pair of ring-tailed snorters, ain’t y’u?” jeered the foreman. “Got to get gay and go projectin’ round on the shoot after y’u got your orders to stay hitched. Anything to say for yo’selves?” If they had it was said very silently.