"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know."

"But--what are they going to do with you?"

"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed.

The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room
triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had
none for her brother.

The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what
you do. Go ahead and do your worst."

Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling
calf. To him the boy was not an enemy--merely a tool which he could use
for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless
face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be
made to suffer through her love for her brother.

"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried.

"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around.
I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck.

"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached.

"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly.

"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later,"