"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.

His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.

"So you are a—rustler," she told him scornfully.

"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter irony.

She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his shirt sleeve.

"You are wounded."

"Am I?"

"Aren't you?"

"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly.

"Badly?"