The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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that leaped to his fine eyes in that flash of time before he hardened them to steel?
“You did it—didn't you?” she demanded.
“That's what they say.” His gaze met her defiantly.
“And it is true, isn't it?”
“Oh, anything is true of a man that herds sheep,” he returned, bitterly.
“If that is true it would not be possible for you to understand how much I despise you.”
“Thank you,” he retorted, ironically.
“I don't understand at all. I don't see how you can be the man they say you are. Before I met you it was easy to understand. But somehow—I don't know—you don't LOOK like a villain.” She found herself strangely voicing the deep hope of her heart. It was surely impossible to look at him and believe him guilty of the things of which, he was accused. And yet he offered no denial, suggested no defense.
Her troubled eyes went over his thin, sunbaked face with its touch, of bitterness, and she did not find it possible to dismiss the subject without giving him a chance to set himself right.
“You can't be as bad as they say. You are not, are you?” she asked, naively.
“What do y'u think?” he responded, coolly.
She flushed angrily at what she accepted as his insolence. “A man of any decency would have jumped at the chance to explain.”
“But if there is nothing to explain?”
“You are then guilty.”
Their eyes met, and neither of them quailed.
“If I pleaded not guilty would y'u believe me?”
She hesitated. “I don't know. How could I when it is known by everybody? And yet—”
He smiled. “Why should I trouble y'u, then, with explanations? I reckon we'll let it go at guilty.”
“Is that all you can say for yourself?”
He seemed to hang in doubt an instant, then shook his head and refused the opening.
“I expect if we changed the subject I could say a good deal for y'u,” he drawled. “I never saw anything pluckier than the way y'u flew down from the mesa and conducted the cutting-out expedition. Y'u sure drilled through your punchers like a streak of lightning.”
“I didn't know who you were,” she explained, proudly.
“Would it have made any difference if y'u had?”
Again the angry flush touched her cheeks. “Not a bit. I would have saved you in order to have you properly hanged later,” she cut back promptly.
He shook his head gayly. “I'm ce'tainly going to disappoint y'u some. Your enterprising punchers may collect me yet, but not alive, I reckon.”
“I'll give them strict orders to bring you in alive.”
“Did you ever want the moon when y'u was a little kid?” he asked.
“We'll see, Mr. Outlaw Bannister.”
He laughed softly, in the quiet, indolent fashion that would have been pleasant if it had not been at her. “It's right kind of you to take so much interest in me. I'd most be willing to oblige by letting your boys rope me to renew this acquaintance, ma'am.” Then, “I get out here Miss Messiter,” he added.
She stopped on the instant. Plainly she could not get rid of him too soon. “Haven't you forgot one thing?” she asked, ironically.
“Yes, ma'am. To thank you proper for what y'u did for me.” He limped gingerly down from the car and stood with his hand on one of the tires. “I have been trying to think how to say it right; but I guess I'll have to give it up. All is that if I ever get a chance to even the score—”
She waved his thanks aside impatiently “I didn't mean that. You have forgotten to take my purse.”
His gravity was broken on the instant, and his laughter was certainly delightfully fresh. “I clean forgot, but I expect I'll drop over to the ranch for it some day.”
“We'll try to make to make you welcome, Mr. Bannister.”
“Don't put yourself out at all. I'll take pot-luck when I come.”
“How many of you may we expect?” she asked, defiantly.
“Oh, I allow to come alone.”
“You'll very likely forget.”
“No, ma'am, I don't know so many ladies that I'm liable to such an oversight.
“I have heard a different story. But if you do remember to come, and will let us know when you expect to honor the Lazy D, I'll have messengers sent to meet you.”
He perfectly understood her to mean leaden ones, and the humorous gleam in his eye sparkled in appreciation of her spirit. “I don't want all that fuss made over me. I reckon I'll drop in unexpected,” he said.
She nodded curtly. “Good-bye. Hope your ankle won't trouble you very much.”
“Thank y'u, ma'am. I reckon it won't. Good-bye, Miss Messiter.”
Out of the tail of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian opera singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless as any stage villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when her machine swept round a curve and she could look back without seeming to do so, limping across through the sage brush toward a little hillock near the road. And as she looked the bare, curly head was inclined toward her in another low, mocking bow. He was certainly the gallantest vagabond unhanged.
Chapter 4.
At the Lazy D Ranch
Helen Messiter was a young woman very much alive, which implies that she was given to emotions; and as her machine skimmed over the ground to the Lazy D she had them to spare. For from the first this young man had taken her eye, and it had come upon her with a distinct shock that he was the notorious scoundrel who was terrorizing the countryside. She told herself almost passionately that she would never have believed it if he had not said so himself. She knew quite well that the coldness that had clutched her heart when he gave his name had had nothing to do with fear. There had been chagrin, disappointment, but nothing in the least like the terror she might have expected. The simple truth was that he had seemed so much a man that it had hurt her to find him also a wild beast.
Deep in her heart she resented the conviction forced upon her. Reckless he undoubtedly was, at odds with the law surely, but it was hard to admit that attractive personality to be the mask of fiendish cruelty and sinister malice. And yet—the facts spoke for themselves. He had not even attempted a denial. Still there was a mystery about him, else how was it possible for two so distinct personalities to dwell together in the same body.
She hated him with all her lusty young will; not only for what he was, but also for what she had been disappointed in not finding him after her first instinctive liking. Yet it was with an odd little thrill that she ran down again into the coulee where her prosaic life had found its first real adventure. He might be all they said, but nothing could wipe out the facts that she had offered her life to save his, and that he had lent her his body as a living shield for one exhilarating moment of danger.
As she reached the hill summit beyond the coulee, Helen Messiter was aware that a rider in ungainly chaps of white wool was rapidly approaching. He dipped down into the next depression without seeing her; and when they came face to face at the top of the rise the result was instantaneous. His pony did an animated two-step not on the programme. It took one glance at the diabolical machine, and went up on its hind legs, preliminary to giving an elaborate exhibition of pitching. The rider indulged in vivid profanity