“A little worry beats a funeral,” Billy retorted sententiously, instinctively mastering the situation because she was a woman and he must take care of her.  “I reckon I could—­” He stopped abruptly and plucked savagely at a stubborn wing feather.

“Of course!  You could ride over and bring back a horse!” She caught eagerly at his half-spoken offer.  “It’s a lot of bother for you, but I—­I’ll be very much obliged.”  Her face was bright again.

“You’d be alone here—­”

“I’m not the least bit afraid to stay alone.  I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

Billy hesitated, met a look in her eyes that he did not like to see there, and yielded.  Obviously, from her viewpoint that was the only thing to do.  A cowpuncher who has ridden the range since he was sixteen should not shirk a night ride in a blizzard, or fear losing the trail.  It was not storming so hard a man might not ride ten miles—­that is, a man like Charming Billy Boyle.

After that he was in great haste to be gone, and would scarcely wait until Miss Bridger, proudly occupying the position of cook, told him that the chicken stew was ready.  Indeed, he would have gone without eating it if she had not protested in a way that made Billy foolishly glad to submit; as it was, he saddled his horse while he waited, and reached for his sheepskin-lined, “sour-dough” coat before the last mouthful was fairly swallowed.  At the last minute he unbuckled his gun belt and held it out to her.

“I’ll leave you this,” he remarked, with an awkward attempt to appear careless.  “You’ll feel safer if you have a gun, and—­and if you’re scared at anything, shoot it.”  He finished with another smile that lighted wonderfully his face and his eyes.

She shook her head.  “I’ve often stayed alone.  There’s nothing in the world to be afraid of—­and anyway, I’ll have the dog.  Thank you, all the same.”

Charming Billy looked at her, opened his mouth and closed it without speaking.  He laid the gun down on the table and turned to go.  “If anything scares yuh,” he repeated stubbornly, “shoot it.  Yuh don’t want to count too much on that dawg.”

He discovered then that Flora Bridger was an exceedingly willful young woman.  She picked up the gun, overtook him, and fairly forced it into his hands.  “Don’t be silly; I don’t want it.  I’m not such a coward as all that.  You must have a very poor opinion of women.  I—­I’m deadly afraid of a gun!”

Billy was not particularly impressed by the last statement, but he felt himself at the end of his resources and buckled the belt around him without more argument.  After all, he told himself, it was not likely that she would have cause for alarm in the few hours that he would be gone, and those hours he meant to trim down as much as possible.