“Who?  I’d like right well to know.”  Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had just come in and was listening.

Phyllis turned and faced him.  “I was that friend, Brill.”

“You!” He stared at her in astonishment.  “You!  Why, it was you sent me out to run him down.”

“I didn’t tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?”

“I guess there’s a lot between him and you that you didn’t tell me,” he jeered.

Slim grinned, not at all maliciously.  “I reckon that’s right.  I don’t need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the kitchen.”

“He was just going,” she protested.

“Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate.”

“Go ahead, Slim.  I’m only a girl.  You and Brill say what you like,” she flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her hands.

“Only don’t say it out loud,” cautioned a new voice.  Jim Yeager was at the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.

“I say what I think, Jim,” Brill retorted promptly.

“And you think?”

Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter.  “I think things ain’t right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape twice.”

“Take care, Brill,” advised Phyllis.

“Not right how?” asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.

“Don’t you two go to twisting my meaning.  All Malpais knows that no better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed.”

The young woman’s lip curled.  “I’m grateful for this indorsement, sir,” she murmured with mock humility.

“Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?” Jim Yeager asked.

“He sure has—­clean as a whistle.”

“Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie.  He ain’t any more a rustler than I am.  If you had hanged him you would have hanged an innocent man.”

“Prove it,” cried Healy.

Jim looked at him quietly.  “I cayn’t prove it just now.  You’ll have to take my word for it.”

“Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so,” his father announced promptly.

Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, Senior.  “I ain’t countin’ you in on that class, dad.  You got to trailing with bad company.  I’ll have to bring you up stricter.”

“I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I’ve got to trust my own eyes before your indorsement,” Healy sneered.

“That’s your privilege, Brill.”

“I reckon Jim knows what he’s talking about,” said Yeager, Senior, with intent to conciliate.

“Of course I know you’re right friendly with him, Jim.  There’s nobody more competent to pass an opinion on him.  Like enough you know all about his affairs,” conceded Healy with polite malice.

The two young men were looking at each other steadily.  They never had been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that.  Rival leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their rivalry to a flame.  Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.