"I won't run away," she replied, sitting down and tucking her feet under her skirts. "I'm not afraid of a coward!"
Another shot rang out just over the top of Stepping Stone Hill and he replied to it. Far to the west a faint report was heard and Pete knew that Skinny was roweling the lathered sides of his straining horse. Yet another sounded flatly from the direction of the dam, the hills multiplying it into a distant fusillade.
"Hear 'em!" he demanded, fierce joy ringing in his voice. "Hear 'em! You've kicked th' dynamite, all right—you'll smell th' smoke of yore little squib clean down to yore ranch house!"
"That's grand—yo're doing it fine," she laughed, strangling the fear which crept slowly through her. "Go on—it's grand!"
"It'll be a whole lot grander when th' boys get here an' find out what's happened," he promised. "There'll be some funerals start out from what's left of yore ranch house purty soon."
"Ki-i-i-e-e-p! Ki-ip ki-ip!" came the hair-raising yell from the top of Stepping Stone Hill, and Pete withheld the rest of his remarks to reply to it in kind. Suddenly Red Connors, his quirt rising and falling, bounded over the top of the hill and shot down the other side at full speed. Close behind him came Billy Williams, who rode as recklessly until his horse stepped into a hole and went down, throwing him forward like a shot out of a catapult. He rolled down the hill some distance before he could check his impetus and then, scrambling to his feet, drew his Colt and put his broken-legged mount out of its misery before hobbling on again.
Red slid to a stand and leaped to the ground, his eyes on the woman, but his first thought was for the house. "What's th' matter? Why ain't you in that shack? Didn't Hopalong tell you to hold it?" he demanded. Turning to Mary Meeker he frowned. "What are you doing up here? Don't you know this ain't no place for you to-day?"
Pete grasped his shoulder and swung him around so sharply that he nearly lost his balance, crying: "Don't talk to her, she's a d——d snake!"
Red's hand moved towards his holster and then stopped, for it was a friend who spoke. "What do you mean, d—n you? Who's a snake? What's wrong here, anyhow?"
Billy limped up and stood amazed at the strange scene, for besides the presence of the woman, his friends were quarrelling and he had never seen that before. Seeing Mary look at him he flushed and sneaked off his sombrero, ashamed because he had forgotten it.