"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.

"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.

"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no
better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."

The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir,"
she murmured with mock humility.

"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.

"He sure has--clean as a whistle."

"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more
a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an
innocent man."

"Prove it," cried Healy.

Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to
take my word for it."

"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his
father announced promptly.

Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager,
Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing
with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."