Childress had been away on some mysterious mission when Smiling Dick Murdock arrived with a small bunch of Lazy G stock and was welcomed as a proven companion in crime. It chanced that no one thought to tell him that the hard-hitting Childress had won his right to consider himself one of them.
The next afternoon following Murdock's arrival, the sergeant rode in, superbly mounted and without the nondescript horse on which he had departed. As the white flag was flying from the pole on the cliff behind the ranch at the entrance gap, his arrival had caused no excitement in the Nest and did not delay a single dance at the main establishment. For a couple of hours, Childress was busy within his own cabin. When he went over to the saloon-dance-hall, after giving his new mount a careful grooming, he saw a strange horse with dropped rein standing out front—a strange horse, lathered from hard riding, yet an animal which he thought he had seen before. Apprehension gripped him, hastening his stride into the almost deserted barroom and on to the dance floor beyond.
And there, sure enough, she was!
Flame of Fire Weed—little Flame with the freckle-bridged nose—with her back up against the tin-piano and a gun in her hand.
Childress paused just a moment to take stock of the surprising situation. Plastered against the wall were the women "regulars," the harpies of the outlaw camp; the two who composed the orchestra, the bartender and several outlaw "guests."
But the figure who particularly claimed Childress' attention was the bow-legged one of Smiling Dick Murdock, evidently under the influence of hooch, who stood confronting the girl who was at bay.
"So, my little firecracker, got some sense when her sweetie rode away—when her sweetie rode away," he was saying, his famous smile a triumphant leer. "Couldn't stand the thought of separation, could you, Bernie dear?" He lurched toward her.
"Stand back!" she cried. "Stand back or I'll separate you from life! You know I didn't follow you here, you horse thief."
Murdock's laugh set Childress' blood on fire, but, his presence in the doorway as yet unnoticed, he held in for the moment.
"That's the girl—that's the red-head!" chortled Murdock. "Scratch and claw to the very end. Over on the ranch, t'other side of the line I was willing to give you the benefit of all the clergy you could round up. Now that you've followed me here to Crow's Nest, we'll dispense with the ceremony. Come hither, that me tender arms may crush you to me manly breast. You're mine——"