The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"
"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills alone. That is all."
"Jim Yeager is your friend?"
"Yes."
"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"
"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.
"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."
He checked his pony and bowed.
"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.
"Up Bear Creek."
"It's twenty miles. You can't do it."
"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.
"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"
He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.
"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her pride.
"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he drawled.
At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I like you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel friendly when I hate you?"
"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came back with his easy smile.
"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I can't let you go alone."
"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss Sanderson."
With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, both at him and at herself.
"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it yet," he said innocently.
"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one that will take charge of you," she choked.
"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating the effect of this pill your friend injected into me."
"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him defiantly.
"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself."
She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her.
He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point.
Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and turned round.
"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she disdained to answer.
Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl.
"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute."
The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn of the head, kept Keller in the saddle.
Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye.
"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after it happened."
The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in the impassive face which he turned upon his host.
"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so careless when he's got a gun in his hand."
"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse."
Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he examined the wound and washed it.
"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring me."
"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever."
"One way and another I'm quite in her debt."
"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work.
She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help it."
"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, impudent smile.
A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. "I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward."
"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?"
"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I wouldn't leave it there to suffer."
"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed.
Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had noticed.
The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door.
"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along."
"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned carelessly.
Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back.
"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him tensely.
The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his revolver.
Chapter IV
"I'm a Rustler and a Thief, Am I?"
Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there are the horses in plain sight."
Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered.
At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack.
"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your assessment