“Yuh’re the girl—­my mother loves.”  He choked on the impulsive avowal he had almost made and finished the sentence awkwardly.  It was impossible for him to escape the natural male instinct to keep his feelings out of words.

The girl’s face softened.  Inside, she was a river of tenderness flowing toward the Irishman.  “I’ll go to your mother, Tim, if she really wants me,” she cried almost in a murmur.

“You’re shoutin’ now, Miss Annie,” said Clay, smiling.  “She sure wants you.  I’ll hit the trail to have that talk with Jim Collins.”

He found “Slim” Jim at his stand.  That flashily dressed young crook eyed him with a dogged and wary defiance.  He had just come from a call at the bedside of Jerry Durand and he felt a healthy respect for the man who could do what this light-stepping young fellow had done to the champion rough-houser of New York.  The story Jerry had told was of an assault from behind with a club, but this Collins did not accept at par.  There were too many bruises on his sides and cuts on his face to be accounted for in any way except by a hard toe-to-toe fight.

“Mo’nin’, Mr. Collins.  I left you in a hurry last night and forgot to pay my bill.  What’s the damage?” asked Clay in his gently ironic drawl.

“Slim” Jim growled something the meaning of which was drowned in an oath.

“You say it was a free ride?  Much obliged.  That’s sure fair enough,” Clay went on easily.  “Well, I didn’t come to talk to you about that.  I’ve got other business with you this mo’nin’.”

The chauffeur looked at him sullenly and silently.

“Suppose we get inside the cab where we can talk comfortably,” Clay proposed.

“Say, I’ll stay right where I’m at,” announced “Slim” Jim.

The cattleman opened the cab door.  “Oh, no, we’ll go inside,” he said softly.

The men looked at each other and battled.  The eye is a more potent weapon than the rapier.  The shallow, shifty ones of the gunman fell before the deep, steady ones of the Arizonan.  “Slim” Jim, with a touch of swagger to save his face, stepped into the cab and sat down.  Clay followed him, closing the door.

“Have you seen Jerry Durand this sunny mo’nin’?” asked Lindsay with surface amiability.

“Wot’s it to you?” demanded Collins.

“Not a thing.  Nothin’ a-tall,” agreed Clay.  “But it may be somethin’ to you.  I’m kinda wonderin’ whether I’ll have to do to you what I did to him.”

“Slim” Jim was not a man of his hands.  He could use a gun on occasion, if the advantage was all in his favor, but he strictly declined personal encounters at closer quarters.  Now he reached for the door hastily.

A strong, sinewy hand fell on his arm and tightened, slightly twisting the flesh as the fingers sank deeper.

Collins let out a yell.  “Gawd!  Don’t do that.  You’re killin’ me.”

“Beg yore pardon.  An accident.  If I get annoyed I’m liable to hurt without meanin’ to,” apologized Clay suavely.  “I’ll come right down to brass tacks, Mr. Collins.  You’re through with Annie Millikan.  Understand?”