But the impish gods who delight in turning upside down the best-laid plans of mice and men were working overtime to-night.  They arranged it that a girl cowering among the wet bushes bordering an unfrequented path heard the “Hi—­yi—­yi” of Arizona and gave a faint cry for help.  That call reached Johnnie and brought him on the run.

A man beside the girl jumped up with a snarl, gun in hand.

But the Runt had caught a sight of Kitty.  A file of fixed bayonets could not have kept him from trying to rescue her.  He dived through the brush like a football tackler.

A gun barked.  The little man did not even know it.  He and the thug went down together, rolled over, clawed furiously at each other, and got to their feet simultaneously.  But the cowpuncher held the gun now.  The crook glared at him for a moment, and bolted for the safety of the bushes in wild flight.

Johnnie fired once, then forgot all about the private little war he had started.  For his arms were full of a sobbing Kitty who clung to him while she wept and talked and exclaimed all in a breath.

“I knew you’d come, Johnnie.  I knew you would—­you or Clay.  They left me here with him while they got away from the police. . . .  Oh, I’ve been so scared.  I didn’t know—­I thought—­”

“’S all right.  ‘S all right, li’l’ girl.  Don’t you cry, Kitty.  Me ‘n’ Clay won’t let ’em hurt you none.  We sure won’t.”

“They said they’d come back later for me,” she wept, uncertain whether to be hysterical or not.

“I wisht they’d come now,” he bragged valorously, and for the moment he did.

She nestled closer, and Johnnie’s heart lost a beat.  He had become aware of a dull pain in the shoulder and of something wet trickling down his shoulder.  But what is one little bullet in your geography when the sweetest girl in the world is in your arms?

“I ain’t nothin’ but a hammered-down li’l’ hayseed of a cowpuncher,” he told her, his voice trembling, “an’ you’re awful pretty an’—­an’—­”

A flag of color fluttered to her soft cheeks.  The silken lashes fell shyly.  “I think you’re fine and dandy, the bravest man that ever was.”

“Do you—­figure you could—?  I—­I—­I don’t reckon you could ever—­”

He stopped, abashed.  To him this creature of soft curves was of heaven-sent charm.  All the beauty and vitality of her youth called to him.  It seemed to Johnnie that God spoke through her.  Which is another way of saying that he was in love with her.

She made a rustling little stir in his arms and lifted a flushed face very tender and appealing.  In the darkness her lips slowly turned to his.

Johnnie chose that inopportune moment to get sick at the stomach.

“I—­I’m goin’ to faint,” he announced, and did.  When he returned to his love-story Johnnie’s head was in Kitty’s lap and a mounted policeman was in the foreground of the scene.  His face was wet from the mist of fine rain falling.