before their feet touched the ground.

"That coyote isn't one of our men. I'll back that opinion high,"
said McWilliams promptly.

"Who is he?" the girl whispered.

"That's what we're going to find out pretty soon," returned
Bannister grimly. "Chances are it's me he is trying to gather.
Now, I'm going to make a break for that cottonwood. When I go,
you better run up a white handkerchief and move back from the
firing-line. Turn Buck loose when you leave. He'll stay around
and come when I whistle."

He made a run for it, zigzagging through the sage-brush so
swiftly as to offer the least certain mark possible for a
sharpshooter. Yet twice the rifle spoke before he reached the
cottonwood.

Meanwhile Mac had fastened the handkerchief of his mistress on
the end of a switch he had picked up and was edging out of range.
His tense, narrowed gaze never left the bush-clump from which the
shots were being pumped, and he was careful during their retreat
to remain on the danger side of the road, in order to cover
Helen.

"I guess Bannister's right. He don't want us, whoever he is."

And even as he murmured it, the wind of a bullet lifted his hat
from his head. He picked it up and examined it. The course of the