"If you're going mine."

"I reckon I am. And just to pass the time you might tell me the real
story of that hold-up while we ride."

"The real story?"

"Well, I don't aim to doubt your word, but I reckon you forgot to tell
some of it." He turned on the other his gay smile. "For instance, seh,
you ain't asking me to believe that you handed over your rig to Kinney
so peaceful and that he went away and clean forgot to unload from you
that gun you pack."

The eyes of the two met and looked into each other's as clear and
straight as Texas sunshine. Slowly Neill's relaxed into a smile.

"No, I won't ask you to believe that. I owe you something because you
saved my life--"

"Forget it," commanded the lieutenant crisply.

"And I can't do less than tell you the whole story."

He told it, yet not the whole of it either; for there was one detail
he omitted completely. It had to do with the cause for existence of
the little black-and-blue bruise under his right eye and the purple
ridge that seamed his wrist. Nor with all his acuteness could Stephen
Fraser guess that the one swelling had been made by a gold ring on the
clenched fist of an angry girl held tight in Larry Neill's arms, the
other by the lash of a horsewhip wielded by the same young woman.