Matthews found his tongue. "Who in hell are you?" he demanded coolly.
"Who am I?" repeated the storekeeper, smiling down the revolver barrel. "Why, I'm St. George, and you're the dragon." He raised his voice. "Miss Lancaster!" he called. "Miss Lancaster!"
A face appeared at a window, then a second. There were more cries, but not of fear. The sash was pushed open. Dallas and Marylyn, the younger girl still clinging to the elder, looked out.
"It's all right," said the storekeeper, not taking his eyes from the enemy. "I'm here."
Dallas could not answer. But Marylyn, though exhausted, was fully alive to their rescue. Her eyes, wide and tearful, were fixed upon Lounsbury.
"Oh, we're afraid!" she cried plaintively; "pa's gone, and we're afraid!"
"You needn't be, any more," he said reassuringly.
Matthews, under his breath, was cursing the self-contained man in the saddle. Enraged at the storekeeper's interference, hot with disappointment, he saw himself stood up like a tenderfoot. But his caution prevailed. A certain expression in Lounsbury's eyes, a certain square set to his jaw—the very cues that guided the cattle-camp—made him cautious.
"Look a-here," he said to Lounsbury, assuming a conciliatory manner. "Let's talk as one gent to another. These ladies is your friends. So far, so good. But I has my rights, and I can prove that I slep' on this quarter-section three times and——"
Lounsbury's face darkened. He was lightly ironical no longer. He urged his mount forward. "Don't argue with me, you infernal blackguard," he said. "You can prove anything you want to by a lot of perjuring, thieving land-grabbers. Don't I know 'em! If you filed on this claim you were hired to do it. You hadn't an idea of settling, or building a home. You did it for speculating purposes—nothing else. And the law, I happen to know, is dead against that. You're a shark. But your game won't work. These folks are going to stay in this shack and on this Bend. And you be mighty careful you don't make 'em any trouble!"