unexpected," he said.

She nodded curtly. "Good-bye. Hope your ankle won't trouble you
very much."

"Thank y'u, ma'am. I reckon it won't. Good-bye, Miss Messiter."

Out of the tail of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian
opera singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless
as any stage villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when
her machine swept round a curve and she could look back without
seeming to do so, limping across through the sage brush toward a
little hillock near the road. And as she looked the bare, curly
head was inclined toward her in another low, mocking bow. He was
certainly the gallantest vagabond unhanged.



CHAPTER 4. AT THE LAZY D RANCH

Helen Messiter was a young woman very much alive, which implies
that she was given to emotions; and as her machine skimmed over
the ground to the Lazy D she had them to spare. For from the
first this young man had taken her eye, and it had come upon her
with a distinct shock that he was the notorious scoundrel who was
terrorizing the countryside. She told herself almost passionately
that she would never have believed it if he had not said so
himself. She knew quite well that the coldness that had clutched
her heart when he gave his name had had nothing to do with fear.
There had been chagrin, disappointment, but nothing in the least