'I'd better be going off by myself somewhere,' he remarked as gravely
as he could manage, 'if you're going to start shooting a man up just
because he calls before breakfast.'

With a face grown a sick white, the man in bed looked helplessly from
the stranger to his daughter and then to the gun.

'I didn't do a thing to it,' he began haltingly.

'You won't do a thing to yourself one of these fine days.' remarked the
horseman with evident relish, 'if you don't quit carrying that sort of
life-saver. Come over to the ranch and I'll swap you a hand-axe for
it.'

Helen sniffed audibly and distastefully. Her first impression of the
stranger had been more correct than are first impressions nine times
out of ten; he was as full of impudence as a city sparrow. She had sat
up 'looking like a fright'; her father had made himself ridiculous; the
stranger was mirthfully concerned with the amusing possibilities of
both of them.

Suddenly the tall man, smitten by inspiration, slapped his thigh with
one hand, while with the other he curbed rebellion in his mare and
offered the explosive wager:

'I'll bet a man a dollar I've got your number, friends. You are
Professor James Edward Longstreet and his little daughter Helen! Am I
right?'