"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me.
Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for
it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I
didn't send her to the penitentiary."

"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict--even if
she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out.

"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed,
with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license
to hold her. About the insult--well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing
except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"--he touched
the scars on his face--"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a
sweep would have done it."

"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly.

Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man
listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her
importunity.

"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you
shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him
still lying there on his bed."

"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the
game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I
might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver
retorted insolently.