His serene, gay smile flashed at her. “Are y’u ordering me to go out and get Ned Bannister’s scalp?”
“No, I am not,” she explained promptly. “What I am trying to discover is why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only a man, isn’t he?”
A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it chiseled marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy foreman as he answered:
“I don’t know what he is, ma’am. He may be one man, or he may be a hundred. What’s more, I ain’t particularly suffering to find out. Fact is, I haven’t lost any Bannisters.”
The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a wary silent vigilance sinister in its intensity.
“In short, you’re like the rest of the people in this section. You’re afraid.”
“Now y’u’re shoutin’, Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to shootin’ off my mouth about Bannister.”
“And you, Mr. Morgan?”
It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious interest for the answer of the foreman.
“Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin’, ma’am?” he asked, with narrowed eyes.