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 show when trying to cover a service for which she desired no acknowledgment.

"It was a fine shot, just a snap at the fellow's arm as he swung it up in the lantern light. There isn't one in a thousand could have hit him."

"I don't know anybody in town that could have done it," she seemed to speculate, a puzzled look in her face as she turned all the probabilities in her mind.

"Burnett says he knows who did it," he said, lightly scoffing.

"Maybe he does."

"So does Jim Justice, but their stories don't match."

"What does Charley say?" she looked up quickly, eagerness in her words.

"He says it was one of the boys."

"Maybe it was one of his men from the range," she said thoughtfully. "And windy old Jim says he did it himself?"

"No. He says it was a lady." A knowing glance went with the words, which seemed only to provoke her mystification.

"A lady? Who was she—did he say?"

"The same one I've been hoping it was." There was the vibration of hopeful eagerness in his voice, an appeal. "But she is so modest, she makes so little of her great and timely help to a foolish, impetuous greenhorn, that he's afraid to come right out and thank her the way he wants to."

"Meaning me?" she asked, truly amazed, touching her wishbone with a pointing finger.

"Wasn't it you, Elizabeth?" he almost pleaded, catching the hand with pointing finger that still rested against