The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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my business, I think,” the girl answered sharply, jerking the bridle from his fingers.
Dunke stared at her. It was his night of surprises. He failed to recognize the conventional teacher he knew in this bright-eyed, full-throated young woman who fronted him so sure of herself. She seemed to him to swim brilliantly in a tide of flushed beauty, in spite of the dust and the stains of travel. She was in a shapeless khaki riding-suit and a plain, gray, broad-brimmed Stetson. But the one could not hide the flexible curves that made so frankly for grace, nor the other the coppery tendrils that escaped in fascinating disorder from under its brim.
“You hadn’t ought to be out here. It ain’t right.”
“I don’t remember asking you to act as a standard of right and wrong for me.”
He laughed awkwardly. “We ain’t quarreling, are we, Miss Margaret?”
“Certainly I am not. I don’t quarrel with anybody but my friends.”
“Well, I didn’t aim to offend you anyway. You know me better than that.” He let his voice fall into a caressing modulation and put a propitiatory hand on her skirt, but under the uncompromising hardness of her gaze the hand fell away to his side. “I’m your friend—leastways I want to be.”
“My friends don’t lynch men.”
“But after what he did to your brother.”
“The law will take care of that. If you want to please me call off your men before it is too late.”
It was his cue to please her, for so far as it was in him the man loved her. He had set his strong will to trample on his past, to rise to a place where no man could shake his security with proof of his former misdeeds. He meant to marry her and to place her out of reach of those evil days of his. Only Struve was left of the old gang, and he knew the Wolf well enough to be sure that the fellow would delight in blackmailing him. The convict’s mouth must be closed. But just now he must promise t she wanted, and he did.
The promise was still on his lips when a third person strode into their conversation.
“Sorry I had to leave you so hastily, Miss Kinney. I’m ready to take you to the hotel now if it suits you.”
Both of them turned quickly, to see the man from the Panhandle sauntering forth from the darkness. There was a slight smile on his face, which did not abate when he nodded to Dunke amiably.
“You?” exclaimed the mine-owner angrily.
“Why, yes—me. Hope we didn’t inconvenience you, seh, by postponing the coyote’s journey to Kingdom Come. My friend had to take a hand because he is a ranger, and I sat in to oblige him. No hard feelings, I hope.”
“Did you—Are you all safe?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Got away slick and clean.”
“Where?” barked Dunke.
“Where what, my friend?”
“Where did you take him?”
Larry laughed in slow deep enjoyment. “I hate to disappoint you, but if I told that would be telling. No, I reckon I won’t table my cards yet a while. If you’re playing in this game of Hi-Spy go to it and hunt.”
“Perhaps you don’t know that I am T. J. Dunke.”
“You don’t say! And I’m General Grant. This lady hyer is Florence Nightingale or Martha Washington, I disremember which.”
Miss Kinney laughed. “Whichever she is she’s very very tired,” she said. “I think I’ll accept your offer to see me to the hotel, Mr. Neill.”
She nodded a careless good night to the mine-owner, and touched the horse with her heel. At the porch of the rather primitive hotel she descended stiffly from the saddle.
Before she left the Southerner—or the Westerner, for sometimes she classified him as one, sometimes as the other—she asked him one hesitant question.
“Were you thinking of going out again tonight?”
“I did think of taking a turn out to see if I could find Fraser. Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes. Please don’t go. I don’t want to have to worry about you. I have had enough trouble for the present.”
“Would you worry about me?” he asked quietly, his eyes steadily on her.
“I lie awake about the most unaccountable things sometimes.”
He smiled in his slow Southern fashion. “Very well. I’ll stay indoors. I reckon Steve ain’t lost, anyhow. You’re too tired to have to lie awake about me to-night. There’s going to be lots of other nights for you to think of me.”
She glanced at him with a quick curiosity. “Well, of all the conceit I ever heard!”
“I’m the limit, ain’t I?” he grinned as he took himself off.
Chapter IX.
Down the Jackrabbit Shaft
Next morning Larry got up so late that he had to Order a special breakfast for himself, the dining-room being closed. He found one guest there, however, just beginning her oatmeal, and he invited himself to eat at her table.
“Good mawnin’, Miss Kinney. You don’t look like you had been lying awake worrying about me,” he began by way of opening the conversation.
Nor did she. Youth recuperates quickly, and after a night’s sound sleep she was glowing with health and sweet vitality. He could see a flush beat into the fresh softness of her flesh, but she lifted her dark lashes promptly to meet him, and came to the sex duel gaily.
“I suppose you think I had to take a sleeping-powder to keep me from it?” she flashed back.
“Oh, well, a person can dream,” he suggested.
“How did you know? But you are right. I did dream of you.”
To the waiter he gave his order before answering her. “Some oatmeal and bacon and eggs. Yes, coffee. And some hot cakes, Charlie. Did you honest dream about me?” This last not to the Chinese waiter who had padded soft-footed to the kitchen.
“Yes.”
She smiled shyly at him with sweet innocence, and he drew his chair a trifle closer.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t like to.”
“But you must. Go on.”
“Well,” very reluctantly. “I dreamed I was visiting the penitentiary and you were there in stripes. You were in for stealing a sheep, I think. Yes, that was it, for stealing a sheep.”
“Couldn’t you make it something more classy if you’re bound to have me in?” he begged, enjoying immensely the rise she was taking out of him.
“I have to tell it the way it was,” she insisted, her eyes bubbling with fun. “And it seems you were the prison cook. First thing I knew you were standing in front of a wall and two hundred of the prisoners were shooting at you. They were using your biscuits as bullets.”
“That was a terrible revenge to take on me for baking them.”
“It seems you had your sheep with you—the one you stole, and you and it were being pelted all over.”
“Did you see a lady hold-up among those shooting at me?” he inquired anxiously.
She shook her head. “And just when the biscuits were flying thickest the wall opened and Mr. Fraser appeared. He caught you and the sheep by the back of your necks, and flung you in. Then the wall closed, and I