"I've been frightened three times in the last week." She caught her breath. "A man hid in the weeds near the house, and his movements gave me a scare; but I didn't think so much about it until Saturday night, when I went out after dark to gather sticks for the breakfast cooking, a man slipped from the shadow of the trees and spoke to me and I ran and he followed me nearly to the house. I got my gun and shot at him.
"But to-night," she gasped for breath again, "just as I was going from papa's tent to my own, a man jumped out and grabbed me. I screamed and he ran away."
Bob put his hand on her arm. He felt it still quivering under his fingers.
"I'll walk back with you," he said in a quiet, reassuring tone.
"Can you lend me a blanket?" he asked when they reached the Chandler ranch. "And let me have your gun, I'll sleep out here to one side of your tent."
She protested, but without avail.
Next morning when Bob returned to his own ranch he spoke to Noah Ezekiel Foster.
"Noah, this afternoon move your tent down to the Chandler ranch. Put it up on the north side of Miss Chandler's so she will be between yours and her father's. I'm going to town and I'll bring out a double-barrelled riot shotgun that won't miss even in the dark. You and that gun are going to sleep side by side."
Noah Ezekiel grinned.
Bob went to the shack, put his own pistol in his pocket, and rode off to Calexico.