Mr. Moffat half rose to his feet.

“You damn—­”

“O Mr. McNeil, how perfectly ridiculous!” chimed in Miss Spencer.  “Please do go on, Mr. Moffat; it is so exceedingly interesting.”

The incensed narrator sank reluctantly back into his seat, his eyes yet glowing angrily.  “Well, I crept carefully along a little gully until I got where them Indians were just exactly opposite me in a direct line.  I had an awful heavy gun, carrying a slug of lead near as big as your fist.  Had it fixed up specially fer grizzlies.  The fellow creepin’ along next me was a tremendous big buck; he looked like a plum giant in that moonlight, and I ‘d just succeeded in drawin’ a bead on him when a draught of air from up the gully strikin’ across the back of my neck made me sneeze, and that buck turned round and saw me.  You wouldn’t hardly believe what happened.”

“Whole—­eh—­bunch drop dead from fright?” asked McNeil, solicitously.

Moffat glared at him savagely, his lips moving, but emitting no sound.

“Oh, please don’t mind,” urged his fair listener, her flushed cheeks betraying her interest.  “He is so full of his fun.  What did follow?”

The story-teller swallowed something in his throat, his gaze still on his persecutor.  “No, sir,” he continued, hoarsely, “them bucks jumped to their feet with the most awful yells I ever heard, and made a rush toward where I was standing.  They was exactly in a line, and I let drive at that first buck, and blame me if that slug didn’t go plum through three of ’em, and knock down the fourth.  You can roast me alive if that ain’t a fact!  The fifth one got away, but I roped the wounded fellow, and was a-sittin’ on him when the rest of the party got back to camp.  Jim Healy was along, and he’ll tell you the same story.”

There was a breathless silence, during which McNeil spat meditatively out of the window.

“Save any—­eh—­locks of their hair?” he questioned, anxiously.

“Oh, please don’t tell me anything about that!” interrupted Miss Spencer, nervously.  “The whites don’t scalp, do they?”

“Not generally, miss, but I—­eh—­didn’t just know what Mr. Moffat’s—­eh—­custom was.”

The latter gentleman had his head craned out of the window once more, in an apparent determination to ignore all such frivolous remarks.  Suddenly he pointed directly ahead.

“There’s Glencaid now, Miss Spencer,” he said, cheerfully, glad enough of an opportunity to change the topic of conversation.  “That’s the spire of the new Presbyterian church sticking up above the ridge.”

“Oh, indeed!  How glad I am to be here safe at last!”

“How—­eh—­did you happen to—­eh—­recognize the church?” asked McNeil with evident admiration.  “You—­eh—­can’t see it from the saloon.”

Moffat disdained reply, and the lurching stage rolled rapidly down the valley, the mules now lashed into a wild gallop to the noisy accompaniment of the driver’s whip.