Wyoming | Page 5

the trapped man. She could
not see him, and for an instant her heart sank with the fear that they had
killed him. But she saw then that they were still firing, and she
continued her honking invitation as the car leaped forward into the zone
of spitting bullets.
By this time she was recovering control of the motor, and she dared not
let her attention wander, but out of the corner of her eye she
appreciated the situation. Temporarily, out of sheer amaze at this
apparition from the blue, the guns ceased their sniping. She became
aware that a light curly head, crouched low in the sage-brush, was
moving rapidly to meet her at right angles, and in doing so was
approaching directly the line of fire. She could see him dodging to and
fro as he moved forward, for the rifles were again barking.
She was within two hundred yards of him, still going rapidly, but not
with the same headlong rush as before, when the curly head
disappeared in the sage-brush. It was up again presently, but she could
see that the man came limping, and so uncertainly that twice he pitched
forward to the ground. Incautionsly one of his assailants ran forward
with a shout the second time his head went down. Crack! The unerring
rifle rang out, and the impetuous one dropped in his tracks.
As she approached, the young woman slowed without stopping, and as
the car swept past Curly Head flung himself in headlong. He picked
himself up from her feet, crept past her to the seat beyond, and almost
instantly whipped his rifle to his shoulder in prompt defiance of the fire
that was now converged on them.
Yet in a few moments the sound died away, for a voice midway in the

crescent had shouted an amazed discovery:
"By God, it's a woman!"
The car skimmed forward over the uneven ground toward the end of
the semicircle, and passed within fifty yards of the second man from
the end, the one she had picked out as the leader of the party. He was a
black, swarthy fellow in plain leather chaps and blue shirt. As they
passed he took a long, steady aim.
"Duck!" shouted the man beside her, and dragged her down on the seat
so that his body covered hers.
A puff of wind fanned the girl's cheek.
"Near thing," her companion said coolly. He looked back at the swarthy
man and laughed softly. "Some day you'll mebbe wish you had sent
your pills straighter, Mr. Judd Morgan."
Yet a few wheel-turns and they had dipped forward out of range among
the great land waves that seemed to stretch before them forever. The
unexpected had happened, and she had achieved a rescue in the face of
the impossible.
"Hurt badly?" the girl inquired briefly, her dark-blue eyes meeting his
as frankly as those of a boy.
"No need for an undertaker. I reckon I'll survive, ma'am,"
"Where are you hit?"
"I just got a telegram from my ankle saying there was a cargo of lead
arrived there unexpected," he drawled easily.
"Hurts a good deal, doesn't it?"
"No more than is needful to keep my memory jogged up. It's a sort of a
forget-me-not souvenir. For a good boy; compliments of Mr. Jim
Henson," he explained.
Her dark glance swept him searchingly. She disapproved the assurance
of his manner even while the youth in her applauded his reckless
sufficiency. His gay courage held her unconsenting admiration even
while she resented it. He was a trifle too much at his ease for one who
had just been snatched from dire peril. Yet even in his insouciance
there was something engaging; something almost of distinction.
"What was the trouble?"
Mirth bubbled in his gray eyes. "I gathered, ma'am, that they wanted to
collect my scalp."
"Do what?" she frowned.

"Bump me off--send me across the divide."
"Oh, I know that. But why?"
He seemed to reproach himself. "Now how could I be so neglectful? I
clean forgot to ask."
"That's ridiculous," was her sharp verdict.
"Yes, ma'am, plumb ridiculous. My only excuse is that they began
scattering lead so sudden I didn't have time to ask many 'Whyfors.' I
reckon we'll just have to call it a Wyoming difference of opinion," he
concluded pleasantly.
"Which means, I suppose, that you are not going to tell me."
"I got so much else to tell y'u that's a heap more important," he laughed.
"Y'u see, I'm enjoyin' my first automobile ride. It was certainly
thoughful of y'u to ask me to go riding with y'u, Miss Messiter."
"So you know my name. May I ask how?" was her astonished question.
He gave the low laugh that always seemed to suggest a private source
of amusement