Ross leaped to her side. “Leave them to me!” he said. “I’ll clear the room.”
“Not on your life! This is my house. I have the right to smash the fools.” And she beat them over the heads with her pistol-barrel.
Recognizing that she was minded to kill, they retreated over the threshold, and Ross, drawing the door close behind them, turned to find Lee Virginia confronting Edwards, who had attempted to escape into the kitchen. The girl’s face was white, but the eye of her revolver stared straight and true into her prisoner’s face.
With a bound Ross seized him and flung him against the wall. “Get back there!” he shouted. “You must take your medicine with your boss.”
The old fellow hurriedly replaced his ragged hat, and, folding his arms, sank back into his chair with bowed head, while Lize turned upon Joe Gregg. “What the devil did you go into this kind of deal for? You knew what the game laws was, didn’t you? Your old dad is all for State regulation, and here you are breaking a State law. Why don’t you stand up for the code like a sport?”
Joe, who had been boasting of the smiles he had drawn from Lee, did not relish this tongue-lashing from her mother, but, assuming a careless air, he said, “I’m all out of smokes; get me a box, that’s a good old soul.”
Lize regarded him with the expression of one nonplussed. “You impudent little cub!” she exclaimed. “What you need is a booting!”
The ranger addressed himself to Lee. “I want to thank you for a very opportune intervention. I didn’t know you could handle a gun so neatly.”
She flushed with pleasure. “Oh yes, I can shoot. My father taught me when I was only six years old.”
As she spoke, Ross caught the man Edwards studying them with furtive glance, but, upon being observed, he resumed his crouching attitude, which concealed his face beneath the rim of his weather-worn hat. It was evident that he was afraid of being recognized. He had the slinking air of the convict, and his form, so despairing in its lax lines, appealed to Lee with even greater poignancy than his face. “I’m sorry,” she said to him, “but it was my duty to help Mr. Cavanagh.”