Weaver’s jaw set like a vise.  Getting to his feet, he looked down at her with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror.

“Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson.  You’ve chosen your way.  I’ll choose mine.  You’ve got to learn that I’m master here; and, by God, I’ll teach it to you.  Before I get through with you, young woman, you’ll come running when I snap my fingers.  From to-day things will be different.  You’ll eat your meals with us and not in your room.  You’ll speak when you’re spoken to.  Set yourself up against me, and I’ll bring you to your knees fast enough.  There’s no law on the Twin Star Ranch but Buck Weaver’s will.”

He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him forceful.  She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same time, so wilful and so masterful.  Before he was out of her sight, she got an instance of his recklessness.

A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral.  His master strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle.

“Didn’t I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?”

“Si, senor,” answered the trembling native.

Weaver’s great fist rose and fell once.  The Mexican sank limply down.  Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode to the house.

As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was.  Thereafter Phyllis sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican woman, waited upon them.  The girl came and went at his bidding.  But she held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren one.

“Do you want to go home?” he taunted her one morning, while at breakfast.

“Is it likely I would want to stay here?” she retorted.

“Why not?  What have you to complain of?  Aren’t you treated well?”

“Yes.”

“What, then?  Are you afraid?”

“No!” she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes.

“That’s good, because you’ve got to stay here—­or go to the pen.  You may take your choice.”

“You’re very generous.  I suppose you don’t expect to keep me here always,” she said scornfully.

“Until my arm gets well.  Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it.”

“Which I am not doing, even while I am here.”

“Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around.”  He grinned satirically.

“So I judge, from the effects.”

“Meaning that I’m always in a rage when I leave you?”

“I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days.”

“I’ll tell them to thank you for it,” he flung back.

Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time.  She came down to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the hall.

She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly.

“Phil!  How did you come here?”