“It was like some tremendous wild beast—­a thousand times stronger and crueller than a grizzly.  It leaped at me, and——­Oh, if you hadn’t been here!”

She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands.

“If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy,” Buck told her lightly.

She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho.  Her face she buried in its mane.  Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely left her alone while he recoiled the rope.

Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken nose of the pony.

“You helped him to save my life, Baldy.  Even he couldn’t have done it without you.  How can I ever pay you for it?”

Weaver had an inspiration.  “He’s yours from this moment.  You can pay him by taking him for your saddle horse.  Baldy will never ride the round-up again.  We’ll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service pension so far as the rough work goes.”

Without looking at him, the girl answered softly:  “Thank you.  I know I’m taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can’t help it.”

“A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero.”

“And what about the man who saves her life?” Her voice was very small and weepy.

“Tickled to death to have the chance.  We’ll forget that.”

Still she did not look at him.  “Never!  Never as long as I live,” she cried vehemently.

It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test now was the time.  He strode across and swung her round till she faced him.

“As long as you live, Phyllis.  And you’re only eighteen.  Me, I’m thirty-seven.  I lack just a year of being twice as old.  What about it?  Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?”

“I—­don’t—­understand.”

“Yes, you do.  I’m asking you to marry me.  Will you?”

“Oh, Mr. Weaver!” she gasped.

“I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn’t I?  But there’s nothing pretty about me.  No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her heart brings her to me in spite of herself.  Is it that way with you?”

Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile.  He took short cuts as if he did not notice the “No Trespassing” sign.  She read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the male lover.  She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally.  But even by the frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver stood head and shoulders above his neighbors.  She had lifted her gaze to meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart was beating like a triphammer.  She felt herself drifting from her moorings.  It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those calm, unwinking eyes of his.