The Highgrader

"I don't like your savage as well as I thought I was going to. If he can't be pleasanter than that you may keep him yourself, Moya," Joyce announced with a smile.

It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later that the sound of hard riding reached them from the rear. Five dusty, hard-bitten men, all armed with rifles and revolvers, drew level with them. The leader threw a crisp question at Lord Farquhar.

"Two riders pass you lately?"

"Yes."

"One on a big sorrel and the other on a roan with white stockings on the front feet?"

"Yes."

"Say anything?"

"The younger one stopped for a few words. He is a Mr. Crumbs, camped on the river just below us."

The lank man with the rifle across his saddle bow laughed grimly. "Yes, he is--not. His name is Kilmeny--Jack Kilmeny. I'm the sheriff of Gunnison County--and I want him bad."

"Did you say Kilmeny?" asked the captain sharply.

"That's what I said--the man that won the broncho busting contest to-day."

To Moya, looking around upon the little group of armed men, there was a menacing tenseness in their manner. Her mind was groping for an explanation, but she understood this much--that the law was reaching out for the devil-may-care youth who had so interested her.

"What do you want with him? What has he done?" she cried quickly.

"He and his friend held up the gatekeeper of the fair association and got away with three thousand dollars."

"Held up! Do you mean robbed?"

"That's what I mean--vamoosed with the whole proceeds of the show. How long since they passed?"

"Between a quarter and half an hour," answered Farquhar.

The sheriff nodded. "All ready, boys."

The clattering hoofs disappeared in a cloud of dust down the road.

The rough places of life had been padded for all these young women. Never before had they come so close to its raw, ugly seams. The shadow of the law, the sacredness of caste, had always guarded them.

India turned upon her brother big dilated eyes. "He said Kilmeny. Who can the man be?"

"I don't know." He was silent a moment in frowning thought, struck by an unwelcome idea. "You remember Uncle Archie. He had a son named Jack who lives somewhere in Colorado. D'ye remember he came home when you were a little kiddie? Stopped at granddad's."

The girl nodded. "He fought you once, didn't he?"

The captain nodded. The doubt began to grow into certainty. "Thought I had seen his face before. He's our cousin Jack. That's who he is."

"And now he's a highwayman. By Jove, he doesn't look it," contributed Farquhar.