Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you say?"
"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."
"Yes, but you said too----"
"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from 'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."
"He isn't a coyote," she objected.
Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear the blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name for him," he admitted.
"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was natural he should feel a grudge."
"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How come you to let him do it?"
"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cañon. The men saw me, and gave chase."
"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with emphasis.
Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that somebody was riding through the chaparral."
"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent to his feelings.
Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.
"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."