“Deer?” rejoined the puncher. “Who’d be deer-hunting in July?”
“Then a bear. He fired fast enough,” remarked the girl.
“Not much chance of that round here,” said the cowman. “Still, it might be. At any rate, Kid, this time I want you to wait for me to ask questions before you cut loose.”
“If he don’t try any funny business,” qualified the puncher.
“Course,” assented Knowles. “Chuckie, you best stay back here.”
“Oh, no, Daddy. There’s only one man and between you and Kid––”
“Sho! Come on, then, if you’re set on it. Kid, you circle to the right.”
The puncher wheeled his horse and rode off around the chaparral. The girl and Knowles, after a short wait, advanced upon the hunter. They were soon within a few yards of him and in plain view. His pony stopped browsing and raised its head to look at them. But the man was stooped over, with his face the other way, and the incessant, reverberating roar of the cañon muffled the tread of their horses on the dusty turf.
The puncher crashed through the corner of the thicket and pulled up on the top of the slope immediately 11 opposite the hunter. The latter sprang to his feet. The puncher instantly covered him with his long-barreled revolver and snapped tersely: “Hands up!”
“My––ante!” gasped the hunter. “A––a road agent!”