Her thoughts ceased, however, when she saw Chavis grin at her, mockingly.

"It's a bluff!" he said. "You couldn't hit the ground, if you had a-hold of the gun with both hands!" He moved slightly, measuring the distance between them.

Plainly, she saw from his actions, from his tensed muscles, her threat would not stop him. She was very pale, and her breast heaved as though from a hard run; Chavis could hear the sound of her breathing as he set himself for a leap; but her lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes glowed and widened as she followed the man's movements. She was going to kill; she had steeled her mind to that. And when she saw the man's muscles contract for the rush that he hoped would disconcert her, she fired, coolly and deliberately.

With the deafening roar of the weapon in her ears, a revulsion, swift, sickening, overcame her. The report reverberated hideously; she seemed to hear a thousand of them. And the smoke billowed around her, strong, pungent. Through it she saw Chavis stagger, clap one hand to his chest and tumble headlong, face down, at her feet. The interior of the cabin whirled in mad circles; the floor seemed to be rising to meet her, and she sank to it, the six-shooter striking the bare boards with a thud that sounded to her like a peal of thunder. And then oblivion, deep and welcome, descended.

Coming down through the break in the canyon, riding slightly in advance of Hagar, Randerson heard the report of a pistol, distant and m.u.f.fled. He turned in the saddle and looked at Hagar questioningly.

"That come from your shack!" he said shortly; "Ruth there alone?"

He caught the girl's quick affirmative, and Patches leaped high in the air from pain and astonishment as the spurs pressed his flanks. When he came down it was to plunge forward with furious bounds that sent him through the water of the river, driving the spume high over his head. He scrambled up the sloping further bank like a cat, gained the level and straightened to his work. Twice that day had riders clattered the narrow trail with remarkable speed, but Patches would have led them.

He was going his best when within fifty feet of the shack he heard Randerson's voice and slowed down. Even then, so great was his impetus, he slid a dozen feet when he felt the reins, rose to keep from turning a somersault, and came down with a grunt.

In an instant Randerson was inside the cabin. Ruth lay p.r.o.ne, where she had fallen. Randerson, pale, grim-lipped, leaned over her.

"Fainted!" he decided. He stepped to the man and turned him over roughly.

"Chavis," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, his lips hardening. "Bored a-plenty!" he added, with vindictive satisfaction. He saw Ruth's weapon, noted the gash in Chavis' forehead, and smiled. "I reckon she fit like a tiger, all right!"

he commented admiringly. And now he stood erect and looked down at Ruth compa.s.sionately. "She's killed him, but she'll die a-mournin' over it!"

Swift resolution made his eyes flash. He looked again at Ruth, saw that she was still in a state of deep unconsciousness. Running out of the cabin, he drew one of his six-shooters. When he had gone about twenty-five feet from the edge of the porch, he wheeled, threw the gun to a quick level, and aimed at the interior of the cabin. At the report he ran toward the cabin again, to meet Hagar, just riding up, wide-eyed and wondering.

"What is goin' on?" she demanded. "What you doin'?"

"Killin' a man," he told her grimly. He seized her by the shoulders.

"Understand," he said sternly; "_I_ killed him, no matter what happens.

I'd just got here."

With Hagar at his heels he entered the cabin again. While the girl worked with Ruth, he went to the rear wall of the cabin and examined it. When shooting from the outside he had aimed at the wall near a small mirror that was affixed there, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction when, embedded in one of the logs that formed the wall, he found the bullet.

Five minutes later he and Hagar led Ruth out on the porch. The girl was shaking and cringing, but trying hard to bear up under the recollection of her terrible experience. She had looked, once, at Chavis, on the floor of the cabin, when she had recovered, and her knees had sagged. But Randerson had gone to her a.s.sistance. She had looked at him, too, in mute agony of spirit, filled with a dull wonder over his presence, but gaining nothing from his face, sternly sympathetic. Outside, in the brilliant sunshine, a sense of time, place, and events came back to her, and for the first time since her recovery she thought of Abe Catherson's note, which Hagar had read.

"Oh," she said, looking at Randerson with luminous eyes, joy flashing in them, "he didn't shoot you!"

"I reckon not, ma'am," he grinned. "I'm still able to keep on range bossin' for the Flyin' W."

"Yes, yes!" she affirmed with a gulp of delight. And she leaned her head a little toward him, so that it almost touched his arm. And he noted, with a pulse of pleasure, that the grip of her hand on the arm tightened.

But her joy was brief; she had only put the tragedy out of her mind for an instant. It returned, and her lips quavered.

"I killed Chavis, Randerson," she said, looking up at him with a pitiful smile. "I have learned what it means to--to take--human life. I killed him, Rex! I shot him down just as he was about to spring upon me! But I had to do it--didn't I?" she pleaded. "I--I couldn't help it. I kept him off as long as I could--and n.o.body came--and he looked so terrible--"

"I reckon you've got things mixed, ma'am." Randerson met her puzzled look at him with a grave smile. "It was me, ma'am, killed him."

She drew a sharp breath, her cheeks suddenly flooded with color; she shook Hagar's arm from around her waist, seized Randerson's shoulders, gripping the sleeves of his shirt hard and staring at him, searching his eyes with eager, anxious intensity.

"Don't lie to me, Randerson," she pleaded. "Oh," she went on, reddening as she thought of another occasion when she had accused him, "I know you wouldn't--I know you _never_ did! But I killed him; I know I did! For I shot him, Randerson, just as he started to leap at me. And I shall never forget the look of awful surprise and horror in his eyes! I shall never get over it--I will never forgive myself!"

"Shucks, ma'am, you're plumb excited. An' I reckon you was more excited then, or you'd know better than to say you did it. Me an' Hagar was just gettin' off our horses here at the door--after comin' from the Flyin' W.

An' I saw Tom Chavis in the cabin. He was facin' the door, ma'am," he said at a venture, and his eyes gleamed when he saw her start, "an' I saw what he was up to. An' I perforated him, ma'am. From outside, here. Your gun went off at the same time. But you ain't learned to shoot extra good yet, an' your bullet didn't hit him. I'll show you where it's stuck, in the wall."

He led her inside and showed her the bullet. And for a short s.p.a.ce she leaned her head against the wall and cried softly. And then, her eyes filled with dread and doubt, she looked up at him.

"Are you sure that is my bullet?" she asked, slowly. She held her breath while awaiting his answer.

It was accompanied by a short laugh, rich in grave humor:

"I reckon you wouldn't compare your shootin' with _mine_, ma'am. Me havin' so much experience, an' you not bein' able to hit a soap-box proper?"

She bowed her head and murmured a fervent:

"Thank G.o.d!"

Randerson caught Hagar's gaze and looked significantly from Ruth to the door. The girl accepted the hint, and coaxed Ruth to accompany her to the door and thence across the porch to the clearing. Randerson watched them until, still walking, they vanished among the trees. Then he took Chavis'

body out. Later, when Ruth and Hagar returned, he was sitting on the edge of the porch, smoking a cigarette.

To Ruth's insistence that Hagar come with her to the house, the girl shook her head firmly.

"Dad will be back, most any time. He'll feel a heap bad, I reckon. An'

I've got to be here."

A little later, riding back toward the Flying W--when they had reached the timber-fringed level where, on another day, Masten had received his thrashing, Ruth halted her pony and faced her escort.

"Randerson," she said, "today Uncle Jepson told me some things that I never knew--about Masten's plots against you. I don't blame you for killing those men. And I am sorry that I--I spoke to you as I did--that day." She held out a hand to him.

He took it, smiling gravely. "Why, I reckoned you never meant it," he said.

"And," she added, blushing deeply; "you are not going to make it necessary for me to find another range boss, are you?"

"I'd feel mighty bad if you was to ask me to quit now," he grinned. And now he looked at her fairly, holding her gaze, his eyes glowing. "But as for bein' range boss--" He paused, and a subtle gleam joined the glow in his eyes. "There's a better job--that I'm goin' to ask you for--some day.

Don't you think that I ought to be promoted, ma'am?"

She wheeled her pony, blushing, and began to ride toward the ranchhouse.

But he urged Patches beside her, and, reaching out, he captured the hand nearest him. And in this manner they rode on--he holding the hand, a thrilling exultation in his heart, she with averted head and downcast eyes, filled with a deep wonder over the new sensation that had come to her.

Uncle Jepson, in the doorway of the house, eagerly watching for the girl's return, saw them coming. Stealthily he closed the door and slipped out into the kitchen, where Aunt Martha was at work.

"Women is mighty uncertain critters, ain't they, Ma?" he said, shaking his head as though puzzled over a feminine trait that had, heretofore, escaped his notice. "I cal'late they never know what they're goin' to do next."

Aunt Martha looked at him over the rims of her spectacles, wonderment in her gaze--perhaps a little belligerence.

"Jep Coakley," she said severely, "you're always runnin' down the women!

What on earth do you live with one for? What are the women doin' now, that you are botherin' so much about?"

He gravely took her by the arm and pointed out of a window, from which Ruth and Randerson could be seen.

Aunt Martha looked, long and intently. And when she finally turned to Uncle Jepson, her face was radiant, and she opened her arms to him.