"You'll never dare to ride this fence again if you take that horse!" she said.
"I'll give you leave at me," he derided. "I'll be right along here to-morrow. Take them things off of that saddle if you want 'em."
"You'll not dare—you'll not let him take my horse, will you?" she appealed, catching sight of Rawlins, her voice quick with new hope.
The fence-rider was at a disadvantage, left hand wound in the reins of the captured horse, his back to the stranger, whom he glimpsed in one quick flash of his eyes around, but he was a fellow who had one kind of argument for a woman, another for a man. His hand was on his rifle; he had it half-way out of the scabbard when Rawlins caught his arm, wrenching the gun away from him.
"No call for a break like that," Rawlins reproved him.
"Who asked you to horn in?" the fence-rider wanted to know. "Who in the Billy Hell are you?"
"I guess it don't matter. You heard what the lady said. Let go of that horse and make yourself scarce around here!"
The fence-rider swept the stranger with an appraising eye, noting his calmness, the way he held the gun, and the general bearing of inflexibility that put up the bars to further argument.
"I guess you're the doctor, pardner," he said.
Rawlins waved his hand in a general direction of Lost Cabin, indicating the fence-rider's business just then lay in that quarter, but said no more. There was
