Round swung Tenlow, cursing. Black Boyar shot across the meadow, the quirt falling at each jump. The tramp glanced back. Tenlow's right hand went up and his gun roared once, twice....

The boy Collie, white and gasping, threw himself in front of Tenlow's horse. The deputy spurred the pony over him and swept down the meadow.

Louise, angered in that the boy had s.n.a.t.c.hed Boyar's reins from her as Overland shouted, relented as she saw the instant bravery in the lad's endeavor to stop Tenlow's horse. She stooped over him. He rose stiffly.

"Oh! I thought you were hurt!" she exclaimed.

"Nope! I guess not. I was scared, I guess. Let's watch 'em, Miss!" And forgetful of his bruised and shaken body, he limped to the edge of the meadow, followed by Louise. "There they go!" he cried. "Red's 'way ahead. The sheriff gent can't shoot again--he's too busy ridin'."

"Boyar! Boyar! Good horse! Good horse!" cried the girl as the black pony flashed across the steep slope of the ragged mountain side like a winged thing. "Boyar! Boy!"

She shivered as the loose shale, ploughed by the pony's flying hoofs, slithered down the slope at every plunge.

"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, wild tears of joy in his eyes.

Suddenly Overland, glancing back, saw Tenlow stop and raise his arm. The tramp cowboy swung Black Boyar half-round, and driving his unspurred heels into the pony's ribs, put him straight down the terrific slope of the mountain at a run.

Tenlow's gun cracked. A spray of dust rose instantly ahead of Boyar.

"Look! Look!" cried Louise. The deputy, angered out of his usual judgment, spurred his horse directly down the footless shale that the tramp had ridden across diagonally. "Look! He can't--The horse--! Oh!"

she groaned as Tenlow's pony stumbled and all but pitched headlong. "The other man--knew better than that--" she gasped, turning to the boy. "He waited--till he struck rock and brush before he turned Boyar."

"Can he ride?" shouted Collie, grinning. But the grin died to a gasp. A burst of shale and dust shot up from the hillside. They saw the flash of the cinchas on the belly of Tenlow's horse as the dauntless pony stumbled and dove headlong down the slope, rolling over and over, to stop finally--a patch of brown, shapeless, quivering.

Below, Overland Red had curbed Boyar and was gazing up at a spot of black on the hillside--d.i.c.k Tenlow, motionless, silent. His sombrero lay several yards down the slope.

"Oh! The horse!" cried Louise, chokingly, with her hand to her breast.

As for d.i.c.k Tenlow, lying halfway down the hillside, stunned and shattered, she had but a secondary sympathy. He had sacrificed a gallant and willing beast to his anger. The tramp, riding a strange pony over desperately perilous and unfamiliar ground, had used judgment. "Your friend is a man!" she said, turning to the boy. "But d.i.c.k Tenlow is hurt--perhaps killed. He went under the horse when it fell."

"I guess it's up to us to see if the sheriff gent is done for, at that,"

said the boy. "Mebby we can do something."

"You'll get arrested, now," said the girl. "If d.i.c.k Tenlow is alive, you'll have to go for help. If he isn't...."

"I'll go, all right. I ain't afraid. I didn't do anything. I guess I'll stick around till Red shows up again, anyhow."

"You're a stranger here. I should go as soon as you have sent help,"

said the girl.

"Mebby I better. I'll help get him up the hill and in the shade. Then I'll beat it for the doc. If I don't come back after that," he said slowly, flushing, "it ain't because I'm scared of anything I done."

Far down in the valley Boyar's sweating sides glistened in the sun. An arm was raised in a gesture of farewell as the tramp swung the pony toward the town. Much to her surprise, Louise found herself waving a vigorous adieu to the distant figure.

The tramp Overland, realizing that the deputy was badly injured, told the first person he met about the accident, advising him to get help at once for the deputy. Then he turned the pony toward the foothills. In a clump of greasewood he dismounted, and, leaving the reins hanging to the saddle-horn, struck Black Boyar on the flank. The horse leaped toward the Moonstone Trail. The tramp disappeared in the brush.

CHAPTER VI

ADVOCATE EXTRAORDINARY

Louise Lacharme, more beautiful than roses, strolled across the vine-shadowed porch of the big ranch-house and sat on the porch rail opposite her uncle. His clear blue eyes twinkled approval as he gazed at her.

Walter Stone was fifty, but the fifty of the hard-riding optimist of the great outdoors. The smooth tan of his cheeks contrasted oddly with the silver of his close-cropped hair. He appeared as a young man prematurely gray.

"How is Boyar?" he asked, smiling a little as Louise, sitting sideways on the porch-rail, swung her foot back and forth quickly.

"Oh, Boy is all right. The tramp turned him loose in the valley. Boy came home."

"It was a clever bit of riding, to get the best of Tenlow on his own range. Was d.i.c.k very badly hurt?" queried Walter Stone.

"Yes, his collar-bone was broken and he was crushed and terribly bruised. His horse was killed. When I was down, day before yesterday, the doctor said d.i.c.k would be all right in time."

"How about this boy, the tramp boy they arrested?"

"Oh," said Louise, "that was a shame! He stayed and helped the doctor put d.i.c.k in the buggy and rode with him to town. Mr. Tenlow was unconscious, and the boy had to go to hold him. Then the boy explained it all at the store, and they arrested him anyway, as a suspicious character. I should have let him go. When Mr. Tenlow became conscious and they told him they had the boy, he said to keep him in the calaboose; that that was where he belonged."

"And you want me to see what I can do for this boy?"

"I didn't say so." And Louise tilted her chin.

"Now, sweetheart, don't quibble. It isn't like you."

The gray silk-clad ankle flashed back and forth. "Really, Uncle Walter, you could have done something for the boy without making me say that I wanted you to. You're always doing something nice--helping people that are in trouble. You don't usually have to be asked."

"Perhaps I like to be asked--by--Louise."

"You're just flattering me, I know! But uncle, if you had seen the boy jump in front of Mr. Tenlow's horse when d.i.c.k shot at the tramp,--and afterwards when the boy helped me with d.i.c.k and stuck right to him clear to his house,--why, you couldn't help but admire him. Then they arrested him--for what? It's a shame! I told him to run when I saw the doctor's buggy coming."

"Yes, Louise; the boy may be brave and likable enough, but how are we to know what he really is? I don't like to take the risk. I don't like to meddle in such affairs."

"Uncle Walter! Risk! And the risks you used to take when you were a young man. Oh, Aunty Eleanor has told me all about your riding bronchos and the Panamint--and lots of things. I won't tell you all, for you'd be flattered to pieces, and I want you in one whole lump to-day."

"Only for to-day, Louise?"

"Oh, maybe for to-morrow, and to-morrow and to-morrow. But, uncle, only last week you said at breakfast that the present system of arrest and imprisonment was all wrong. That was because they arrested that editor who was a friend of yours. But now, when you have a chance to prove that you were in earnest, you don't seem a bit interested."

"Did I really say all that, sweetness?"

"Now _you_ are quibbling. And does 'sweetness,' mean me, or what you said at breakfast? Because you said 'the whole d.a.m.n system'; and there were two ladies at the table. Of course, that was before breakfast.

After breakfast you picked a rose for aunty, and kissed me."

Walter Stone laughed heartily. "But I do take a great deal of interest in anything that interests you."