Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/117

 "He'll have to lick me before he goes back to that house."

Neither the trespasser nor the defender was in sight now. Tippie's face was a shade more stern as he posed in stiff attention, head turned to catch the first sound of encounter beyond the hill. As if unconsciously drifting with his thoughts, he began to ride slowly toward the fence, Rawlins trailing. Tippie was thinking of the horse he had risked in that foolish venture, and the price of it he should be obliged to make good if it were lost. That was plain as the fence posts to Rawlins' eyes.

When shooting began presently over the hill, Tippie's uneasiness increased. He fidgeted, stretching himself, toes in the stirrups, to see something where nothing offered to the anxious eye. It was not Peck's pistol they heard, but a high-powered rifle, fired at intervals, as a man might shoot at something that came into sight by starts.

Rawlins took some hope for Peck from the uncertainty the fence-rider would have on the identity of the trespasser. It was likely he would believe the girl of yesterday had invaded his pastures again, as she had threatened. The fellow hardly would risk shooting a woman, impossible as it would be to mistake Peck's gender a quarter of a mile away.

Peck broke over the top of the hill behind which he had disappeared but a few minutes before. There was no mistaking Peck, although he was half a mile or more distant, his pose in the saddle being somewhat eccentric, and truly original.

The little roan flashed across the bare hilltop, plung-