Arizona Charley, a tall man off a horse and walking with a limp, moved
slowly about the captive, grinning at his companions. It was plain that
he did not expect the stranger to survive the test.

A brief, deep-throated shout from the crowd.

"There's Perris!" cried Corson. "There's Red Perris, I guess!"

Marianne gasped.

It was the devil-may-care cavalier who had laughed and fought and
whistled under the window of her room. He stepped from the thick of the
circle near Rickety and responded to the voice of the crowd by waving
his hat. It would have been a trifle too grandiloquent had he not been
laughing.

"He's going through with it," said Corson, shivering and chuckling at
the same time. "He's going to try Rickety. They look like one and the
same kind to me--two reckless devils, that hoss and Red Jim Perris!"

"Is there real danger?" asked Marianne.

Corson regarded her with pity.

"Rickety _can_ be rode, they say," he answered, "but I disremember
anybody that's done it. Look! He's a man-killer that hoss!"

Perris had stepped a little too close and the piebald thrust out at him
with reaching teeth and striking forefoot. The man leaped back, still