"Can you stop them?"
"That's what I draw a dollar a day for."
"You mustn't let them do it!" she cried, a little wildly. "Let the law punish him!"
"Suits me. I'll try to persuade the boys to look at it that way."
"But what can you do? You're only a boy."
With a grim little smile he paraphrased Roy Bean's famous phrase: "I'm law east of the Pecos right now, Miss Wadley. Don't you worry. The Dinsmores won't get him if I can help it."
"I might speak to my father," she went on, thinking aloud. "But he's so bitter I'm afraid he won't do anything."
"He will after I've talked with him."
Her anxious young eyes rested in his clear, steady gaze. There was something about this youth that compelled confidence. His broad-shouldered vigor, the virile strength so confidently reposeful, were expressions of personality rather than accidentals of physique.
The road dipped suddenly into a deep wash that was almost a little gulch. There was a grinding of brakes, then a sudden lurch that threw Ramona against the shoulder of the Ranger.