“No.”

His eyes were like steel drills.  They never left her.  “Quite sure?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing there?”

She had no answer ready.  Her wild look went round in search of a friend in this circle of enemies.  They found him in the man who was a prisoner.  His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear.

“Did you hear what I said?” demanded Weaver.

“I was—­riding.”

“Alone?”

The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible.  “Yes.”

“Riding in Antelope Valley?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see that gun.”  Weaver held out his hand for the rifle.

Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then slowly she handed him the rifle.  He broke and examined it.  From the chamber he extracted an empty shell.

Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her.

“I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm.  Isn’t that right?”

“I—­I don’t know.”

“Who does, then?  Either you shot me or you know who did.”

Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting.

“I did it.”

She was looking at him steadily now.  Since the thing must be faced, she had braced herself to it.  It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of her soft eyes.  This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the gameness that dwelt in her slim body.  But none of his admiration showed in the hard, weather-beaten face.

“So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, sheep-herding outfit!” he taunted.

“My people are not rustlers.  They have a right to be on earth, even if you don’t want them there.”

“I’ll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country before I get through with them.  But that ain’t the point now.  What I want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing for them.”

“They didn’t send me.  I just saw you, and—­and shot on an impulse.  Your men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep.  They wounded one of our herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed.  They have done a hundred mean and brutal things.  You are at the bottom of it all; and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, I just——­”

“Well?”

“Couldn’t help—­what I did.”

“You’re a nicely brought up young woman—­about as savage as the rest of your wolf breed,” jeered Weaver.

Yet he exulted in her—­in the impulse of ferocity that had made her strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging.  Her shy, untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded grudgingly.

“What in Heaven’s name brought you back after you had once got away?” Weaver asked.