had caught neither the words nor their import. She took the
offered brown hand smilingly, for here again she looked into the
frank eyes of the West, unafraid and steady. She judged him not
more than twenty-two, but the school where he had learned of life
had held open and strenuous session every day since he could
remember.

"Glad to meet y'u, ma'am," he assured her, in the current phrase
of the semi-arid lands.

"I'm sure I am glad to meet YOU," she answered, heartily. "Can
you tell me where is the foreman of the Lazy D?"

He introduced with a smile the swarthy man in the doorway. "This
is him ma'am--Mr. Judd Morgan."

Now it happened that Mr. Judd Morgan was simmering with
suppressed spleen.

"All I've got to say is that you had no business mixing up in
that shootin' affair back there. Perhaps you don't know that the
man you saved is Ned Bannister, the outlaw," was his surly
greeting.

"Oh, yes, I know that."

"Then what d'ye mean--Who are you, anyway?" His insolent eyes
coasted malevolently over her.

"Helen Messiter is my name."