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Updated: June 22, 2025
Helen Messiter, just finishing her breakfast at the hotel preparatory to leaving in her machine for the ranch, laid down her knife and fork and looked with dilated eyes at Denver, who had broken in with the news. "Are you sure?" The color had washed from her face and left her very white, but she fronted the situation quietly without hysterics or fuss of any kind. "Yes, ma'am.
Only Miss Messiter and her punchers told the truth, and their words were blown away like chaff. From the first moment of darkness Helen had the outlaw leader dogged by two of her men. Since neither of these were her own riders this was done without suspicion. At intervals of every quarter of an hour they reported to her in turn.
He might be all they said, but nothing could wipe out the facts that she had offered her life to save his, and that he had lent her his body as a living shield for one exhilarating moment of danger. As she reached the hill summit beyond the coulee, Helen Messiter was aware that a rider in ungainly chaps of white wool was rapidly approaching.
When she met him at the supper table her first question was, "Did Miss Messiter say I was an old maid?" "Sho! I wouldn't let that trouble me if I was y'u. A woman ain't any older than she looks. Your age don't show to speak of." "But did she?" "I reckon she laid a trap for me and I shoved my paw in. She wanted to give me a pleasant surprise." "Oh!" "Don't y'u grow anxious about being an old maid.
Y'u don't suppose he would take it out of Miss Messiter." "Not unless he's tired of living," returned her foreman, darkly. "One thing, this country won't stand for is that. He's got to keep his hands off women or he loses out. He dassent lay a hand on them if they don't want him to. That's the law of the plains, isn't it?"
"I don't see why you don't go after your mail every day at least, especially when Miss Messiter was expecting me. To leave me waiting here thirty hours I'll not stand it. When does the next train leave for Detroit?" she asked, imperiously. The situation seemed to call for diplomacy, and Jim McWilliams moved to a nearer chair. "I'm right sorry it happened, ma'am, and I'll bet Miss Messiter is, too.
"You MUST speak lower when you talk of him, Miss Messiter," the woman insisted. "Yes, I saw him once; at least I think I did. Mighty few folks know for sure that they have seen him. He is a mystery, and he travels under many names and disguises." "When was it you think you saw him?" "Two years ago at Ayr. The bank was looted that night and robbed of thirty thousand dollars.
References to Helen Messiter and the housemaid were usually by way of repartee at each other. For a change had come over the spirit of the Lazy D men, and, though a cheerful profanity still flowed freely when they were alone together, vulgarity was largely banished.
If y'u miss it, y'u'll feed at some other chuckhouse." Suddenly the drawl of his sarcasm vanished. His voice carried the ring of peremptory command. "Jim, y'u go back to the ranch with Miss Messiter, AND KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. Missou, I need y'u. We're going back. I reckon y'u better hang on to the stirrup, for we got to travel some. Adios, senorita!"
He had put her in a false position, and he had never explained to her why. Nor could she guess the reason for he was not a man to harvest credit for himself by explaining his own chivalry. Since her heart told her how glad she was he had come to her box to see her, she greeted him with the coolest little nod in the world. "Good morning, Miss Messiter. May I sit beside y'u?" he asked.
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