CHAPTER II
A YEARLING SOLD
Three riders came galloping along the ridge towards the hunter. At sight of his pony the grizzled cowman in the lead signed to his companions and came to a sudden stop behind a clump of service-berry bushes. The others swerved in beside him, the bowlegged young puncher on the right with his hand at his hip.
“Jumping Jehosaphat!” he exulted. “We shore have got him, Mr. Knowles, the blasted––” His thin lips closed tight to shut in the oath as he turned his gaze on the lovely flushed face of the girl beside him. When his cold gray eyes met hers they lighted with a glow like that of fire through ice.
“You better stay here, Miss Chuckie,” he advised. “We’re going to cure that rustler.”
“But, Kid, what if––No, no! wait!” she cried at sight of his drawn Colt’s. “Daddy, stop him! The man may not be a rustler.”
“You heard the shooting,” answered the cowman.
“Yes, but he may have been after a deer,” answered the girl, lifting her lithe figure tiptoe in the stirrups of her man’s saddle to peer over the bushes. 10