"That's a coyote. I wish I could get a shot at him--they're an awful pest, out here, you know." He looked longingly at the rifle under his feet. "If I thought you could hold the horses a minute--"

"Oh, I can't! I--I'm not accustomed to horses--but I can shoot a little."

Chip gave her a quick, measuring glance. The coyote had halted and was squatting upon his haunches, his sharp nose pointed inquisitively toward them. Chip slowed the creams to a walk, raised the gun and laid it across his knees, threw a sh.e.l.l into position and adjusted the sight.

"Here, you can try, if you like," he said. "Whenever you're ready I'll stop. You had better stand up--I'll watch that you don't fall. Ready?

Whoa, Pet!"

Miss Whitmore did not much like the skepticism in his tone, but she stood up, took quick, careful aim and fired.

Pet jumped her full length and reared, but Chip was watching for some such performance and had them well under control, even though he was compelled to catch Miss Whitmore from lurching backward upon her baggage behind the seat--which would have been bad for the guitar and mandolin, if not for the young woman.

The coyote had sprung high in air, whirled dizzily and darted over the hill.

"You hit him," cried Chip, forgetting his prejudice for a moment. He turned the creams from the road, filled with the spirit of the chase.

Miss Whitmore will long remember that mad dash over the hilltops and into the hollows, in which she could only cling to the rifle and to the seat as best she might, and hope that the driver knew what he was about--which he certainly did.

"There he goes, sneaking down that coulee! He'll get into one of those washouts and hide, if we don't head him off. I'll drive around so you can get another shot at him," cried Chip. He headed up the hill again until the coyote, crouching low, was fully revealed.

"That's a fine shot. Throw another sh.e.l.l in, quick! You better kneel on the seat, this time--the horses know what's coming. Steady, Polly, my girl!"

Miss Whitmore glanced down the hill, and then, apprehensively, at the creams, who were clanking their bits, wild-eyed and quivering. Only their master's familiar voice and firm grip on the reins held them there at all. Chip saw and interpreted the glance, somewhat contemptuously.

"Oh, of course if you're AFRAID--"

Miss Whitmore set her teeth savagely, knelt and fired, cutting the sentence short in his teeth and forcing his undivided attention to the horses, which showed a strong inclination to bolt.

"I think I got him that time," said she, nonchalantly, setting her hat straight--though Chip, with one of his quick glances, observed that she was rather white around the mouth.

He brought the horses dexterously into the road and quieted them.

"Aren't you going to get my coyote?" she ventured to ask.

"Certainly. The road swings back, down that same coulee, and we'll pa.s.s right by it. Then I'll get out and pick him up, while you hold the horses."

"You'll hold those horses yourself," returned Miss Whitmore, with considerable spirit. "I'd much rather pick up the coyote, thank you."

Chip said nothing to this, whatever he may have thought. He drove up to the coyote with much coaxing of Pet and Polly, who eyed the gray object askance. Miss Whitmore sprang out and seized the animal by its coa.r.s.e, bushy tail.

"Gracious, he's heavy!" she exclaimed, after one tug.

"He's been fattening up on Flying U calves," remarked Chip, his foot upon the brake.

Miss Whitmore knelt and examined the cattle thief curiously.

"Look," she said, "here's where I hit him the first time; the bullet took a diagonal course from the shoulder back to the other side. It must have gone within an inch of his heart, and would have finished him in a short time, without that other shot--that penetrated his brain, you see; death was instantaneous."

Chip had taken advantage of the halt to roll a cigarette, holding the reins tightly between his knees while he did so. He pa.s.sed the loose edge of the paper across the tip of his tongue, eying the young woman curiously the while.

"You seem to be pretty well onto your job," he remarked, dryly.

"I ought to be," she said, laughing a little. "I've been learning the trade ever since I was sixteen."

"Yes? You began early."

"My Uncle John is a doctor. I helped him in the office till he got me into the medical school. I was brought up in an atmosphere of antiseptics and learned all the bones in Uncle John's 'Boneparte'--the skeleton, you know--before I knew all my letters." She dragged the coyote close to the wheel.

"Let me get hold of the tail." Chip carefully pinched out the blaze of his match and threw it away before he leaned over to help. With a quick lift he landed the animal, limp and b.l.o.o.d.y, squarely upon the top of Miss Whitmore's largest trunk. The pointed nose hung down the side, the white fangs exposed in a sinister grin. The girl gazed upon him proudly at first, then in dismay.

"Oh, he's dripping blood all over my mandolin case--and I just know it won't come out!" She tugged frantically at the instrument.

"'Out, d.a.m.ned spot!'" quoted Chip in a sepulchral tone before he turned to a.s.sist her.

Miss Whitmore let go the mandolin and stared blankly up at him, and Chip, offended at her frank surprise that he should quote Shakespeare, shut his lips tightly and relapsed into silence.

CHAPTER II. -- Over the "Hog's Back."

"That's Flying U ranch," volunteered Chip, as they turned sharply to the right and began to descend a long grade built into the side of a steep, rocky bluff. Below them lay the ranch in a long, narrow coulee. Nearest them sprawled the house, low, white and roomy, with broad porches and wide windows; further down the coulee, at the base of a gentle slope, were the sheds, the high, round corrals and the haystacks. Great, board gates were distributed in seemingly useless profusion, while barbed wire fences stretched away in all directions. A small creek, bordered with cottonwoods and scraggly willows, wound aimlessly away down the coulee.

"J. G. doesn't seem to have much method," remarked Miss Whitmore, after a critical survey. "What are all those log cabins scattered down the hill for? They look as though J. G. had a handful that he didn't want, and just threw them down toward the stable and left them lying where they happened to fall."

"It does, all right," conceded Chip. "They're the bunk house--where us fellows sleep--and the mess house, where we eat, and then come the blacksmith shop and a shack we keep all kinds of truck in, and--"

"What--in--the world--"

A chorus of shouts and shots arose from below. A scurrying group of hors.e.m.e.n burst over the hill behind the house, dashed half down the slope, and surrounded the bunk house with blood-curdling yells. Chip held the creams to a walk and furtively watched his companion. Miss Whitmore's eyes were very wide open; plainly, she was astonished beyond measure at the uproar. Whether she was also frightened, Chip could not determine.

The menacing yells increased in volume till the very hills seemed to cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged from the cabin and lifted to the back of a snorting pony.

"They've got a rope around that man's neck," she breathed, in a horrified half whisper. "Are--they--going to HANG him?"

"It kinda looks that way, from here," said Chip, inwardly ashamed. All at once it struck him as mean and cowardly to frighten a lady who had traveled far among strangers and who had that tired droop to her mouth.

It wasn't a fair game; it was cheating. Only for his promise to the boys, he would have told her the truth then and there.

Miss Whitmore was not a stupid young woman; his very indifference told her all that she needed to know. She tore her eyes from the confused jumble of gesticulating men and restive steeds to look sharply at Chip.

He met her eyes squarely for an instant, and the horror oozed from her and left only amused chagrin that they should try to trick her so.

"Hurry up," she commanded, "so I can be in at the death. Remember, I'm a doctor. They're tying him to his horse--he looks half dead with fright."

Inwardly she added: "He overacts the part dreadfully."

The little cavalcade in the coulee fired a spectacular volley into the air and swept down the slope like a dry-weather whirlwind across a patch of alkali ground. Through the big gate and up the road past the stables they thundered, the prisoner bound and helpless in their midst.