"I'll take any one of 'em on soon as I'm out--any time, any place, any mark," retorted Wadley promptly.

"I'll go you. Roberts is a new man an' hasn't had much experience. I'll match him with you."

"New man! H'mp! He's the best you've got, an' you know it."

"I don't know whether he is, but he's good enough to make any old-timer like you look like a plugged nickel."

The cattleman snorted again, disdaining an answer.

"Dad is the best shot in Texas," p.r.o.nounced Ramona calmly, rallying to her father's support. For years she had been the umpire between the two.

The Captain threw up his hands. "I give up."

"And Mr. Roberts is just about as good."

"That's settled, then," said Ellison. "But what I came to say is that I'm goin' to round up the Dinsmore bunch. We can't convict 'em of murder on the evidence we have, but I'll arrest 'em for shootin' you an' try to get a confession out of one of 'em. Does that look reasonable, Clint?"

Wadley considered this.

"It's worth a try-out. The Dinsmores are game. They won't squeal. But I've a sneakin' notion Gurley is yellow. He might come through--or that other fellow Overstreet might. I don't know him. You want to be careful how you try to take that outfit, though, Jim. They're dangerous as rattlesnakes."

"That's the kind of outfit my boys eat up," answered the chipper little officer as he rose to leave. "Well, so long, Clint. Behave proper, an'

mebbe this young tyrant will give you a nice stick o' candy for a good boy."

He went out chuckling.

The cattleman snorted. "Beats all how crazy Jim is about those Ranger boys of his. He thinks the sun rises an' sets by them. I want to tell you they've got to sleep on the trail a long time an' get up early in the mo'nin' to catch the Dinsmores in bed. That bird Pete always has one eye open. What's more, he an' his gang wear their guns low."

"I don't think Uncle Jim ought to send boys like Jack Roberts out against such desperadoes. It's not fair," Ramona said decisively.

"Oh, ain't it?" Her father promptly switched to the other side. "You give me a bunch of boys like young Roberts, an' I'd undertake to clean up this whole country, an' Lincoln County too. He's a dead shot. He's an A-1 trailer. He can whip his weight in wildcats. He's got savvy. He uses his brains. An' he's game from the toes up. What more does a man need?"

"I didn't know you liked him," his daughter said innocently.

"Like him? Jumpin' snakes, no! He's too darned fresh to suit me. What's likin' him got to do with it? I'm just tellin' you that no better officer ever stood in shoe-leather."

"Oh, I see."

Ramona said no more. She asked herself no questions as to the reason, but she knew that her father's words of praise were sweet to hear. They sent a warm glow of pride through her heart. She wanted to think well of this red-haired Ranger who trod the earth as though he were the heir of all the ages. In some strange way Fate had linked his life with hers from that moment when he had literally flung himself in her path to fight a mad bull for her life.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SHOT OUT OF THE NIGHT

Ramona sat on the porch in the gathering darkness. She had been reading aloud to her father, but he had fallen asleep beside her in his big armchair. During these convalescent days he usually took a nap after dinner and after supper. He called it forty winks, but to an unprejudiced listener the voice of his slumber sounded like a sawmill in action.

The gate clicked, and a man walked up the path. He did not know that the soft eyes of the girl, sitting in the porch shadows, lit with pleasure at sight of him. Nothing in her voice or in her greeting told him so.

He took off his hat and stood awkwardly with one booted foot on the lowest step.

"I came to see Mr. Wadley," he presently explained, unaccountably short of small talk.

She looked at her father and laughed. The saw was ripping through a series of knots in alternate crescendo and diminuendo. "Shall I wake him? He likes to sleep after eating. I think it does him good."

"Don't you! I'll come some other time."

"Couldn't you wait a little? He doesn't usually sleep long." The girl suggested it hospitably. His embarra.s.sment relieved any she might otherwise have felt.

"I reckon not."

At the end of that simple sentence he stuck, and because of it Jack Roberts blushed. It was absurd. There was no sense in it, he told himself. It never troubled him to meet men. He hadn't felt any shyness when there had been a chance to function in action for her. But now he was all feet and hands before this slip of a girl. Was it because of that day when she had come flying between him and the guns of Dinsmore's lynching-party? He wanted to thank her, to tell her how deeply grateful he had been for the thought that had inspired her impulse. Instead of which he was, he did not forget to remind himself later, as expressive as a b.u.mp on a log.

"Have you seen anything of Mr. Ridley?" she asked.

"No, miss. He saved yore father's life from Pete Dinsmore. I reckon you know that."

"Yes. I saw him for a moment. Poor boy! I think he is worrying himself sick. If you meet him will you tell him that everything's all right. Dad would like to see him."

Their voices had dropped a note in order not to waken her father. For the same reason she had come down the steps and was moving with him toward the gate.

If Jack had known how to say good-bye they would probably have parted at the fence, but he was not socially adequate for the business of turning his back gracefully on a young woman and walking away. As he backed from her he blurted out what was in his mind.

"I gotta thank you for--for b.u.t.tin' in the other day, Miss Ramona."

She laughed, quite at her ease now. Why is it that the most tender-hearted young women like to see big two-fisted men afraid of them?

"Oh, you thought I was b.u.t.tin' in," she mocked, tilting a gay challenge of the eyes at him.

"I roped the wrong word, miss. I--I thought--"

What he thought was never a matter of record. She had followed him along the fence to complete his discomfiture and to enjoy her power to turn him from an efficient man into a bashful hobbledehoy.

"Father gave me an awful scolding. He said I didn't act like a lady."

"He's 'way off," differed Jack hotly.

She shook her head. "No. You see I couldn't explain to everybody there that I did it for--for Rutherford--because I didn't want anything so dreadful as that poor Mexican's death on his account. Dad said some of the men might think I did it--oh, just to be showing off," she finished untruthfully.

"n.o.body would think that--n.o.body but a plumb idjit. I think you did fine."

Having explained satisfactorily that she had not interfered for his sake, there was really no occasion for Ramona to linger. But Jack had found his tongue at last and the minutes slipped away.

A sound in the brush on the far side of the road brought the Ranger to attention. It was the breaking of a twig. The foot that crushed it might belong to a cow or a horse. But Roberts took no chances. If some one was lying in wait, it was probably to get him.

"Turn round an' walk to the house," he ordered the girl crisply. "Sing 'Swanee River' as you go. Quick!"