The girl's gauntleted hand offered itself impulsively. "We can't
be friends under existing circumstances, Mr. Bannister. But that
does not alter the fact that I owe you an apology. You came as a
peace envoy, and one of my men shot at you. Of course, he did not
understand the reason why you came, but that does not matter. I
did not know your reason myself, and I know I have been very
inhospitable."

"Are you shaking hands with Ned Bannister the sheepman or Ned
Bannister the outlaw?" asked the owner of that name, with a queer
little smile that seemed to mock himself.

"With Ned Bannister the gentleman. If there is another side to
him I don't know it personally."

He flushed underneath the tan, but very plainly with pleasure.
"Your opinions are right contrary to Hoyle, ma'am. Aren't you
aware that a sheepman is the lowest thing that walks? Ask Mr.
McWilliams."

"I have known stockmen of that opinion, but--"

The foreman's sentence was never finished. From a clump of bushes
a hundred yards away came the crack of a rifle. A bullet sang
past, cutting a line that left on one side of it Bannister, on
the other Miss Messiter and her foreman. Instantly the two men
slid from their horses on the farther side, dragged down the
young woman behind the cover of the broncos, and arranged the
three ponies so as to give her the greatest protection available.
Somehow the weapons that garnished them had leaped to their hands