Near by stood Mrs. Steele, with clasped hands and staring eyes, helpless with fear.  The boys’ coming caused a moment’s irresolution in the crowd.  Mrs. Steele saw her chance, and fear left her.  She boldly forced her way to where Injun and Whitey stood, and turned to her husband, who was foremost among the lynchers.

“Gil!” she cried, pointing at Whitey.  “You ain’t goin’ to kill this boy?  He saved your life!” She saw a change come in her husband’s face and was quick to follow up her advantage.  She grasped Injun by the arm.  “And this Injun,” she called.  “See what he did for you.  You ain’t goin’ to fire on him?”

“No, by——­, I ain’t!” said Steele.

In his thirst for revenge he had been willing enough to oppose his rescuers; indeed, some of them would have been fighting with him; but to fight against the boys was different.  He drew his gun from its holster, threw it on the ground, went over to Whitey, and grasped him by the hand.

It would be hard to say what turned the tide of that mob’s feelings.  Whether it was Whitey’s standing by his father, Mrs. Steele’s quick wit, or Gil’s throwing down his gun, or all three.  But the tide was turned.  The desire to kill was gone, and no one knew this better than Mart Cooley.  As he and Walt Lampson moved toward the horses, he paused and spoke to Mr. Sherwood.

“You got good nerve, all right,” he said, “and so has the kid.”

Mr. Sherwood smiled, and Mart Cooley went on into the shadows, from which he never came again, as far as the father and son’s lives went.  And it must be admitted that Whitey’s nerves were rather shaken by now, with the excitement of the ride and the fear for his father and all.  But it was something to have been the first messenger boy in the West—­even if you were started off as a joke—­and to help bring about the new order of things.

CHAPTER XXIII

PIONEER DAYS

Injun and Whitey sat on the veranda of the Bar O Ranch house, with Sitting Bull between them.  One of Whitey’s hands rested on the head of the dog, who leered at him lovingly.  Now that Whitey was back, Bull was so full of contentment that it almost gave him indigestion.

“Injun, do you remember the day Bull came?” Whitey asked.  “And how I said maybe it was a good omen, and there ought to be something doing on the ranch?  Well, there has been something doing—­on and off.”

“Um,” said Injun, looking at Bull, with a gleam of appreciation in his eye.  “Him good med’cine.”

Whitey’s night ride from the Hanley Ranch had created much favorable comment in the neighborhood, and Injun had come in for his share of praise.  Some one called them “the rescuing kids.”  But Whitey found that being a hero wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.  When any one praised him he was inclined to blush, and that made him sore at himself.