“Let go my hand, Bard. It’s like the rest of me—not a decoration but for use.”
“Afraid of me, Sally?”
“Not of a regiment like you.”
“Then of my method?”
“Go on; I’m game.”
“But this is all there is to it.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Just what I say. Having observed that you haven’t set off any of your advantages, I will sit here and look into your face in silence, which is as much as to say that no matter how you dress you can’t spoil a very excellent figure, Sally. I suppose you’ve heard that before?”
“Lots of times,” she muttered.
“But you wouldn’t hear it from me. All I would do would be to sit and stare and let you imagine what I’m thinking. And you’d begin to see that in spite of the way you do your hair you can’t spoil its colour nor its texture.”
He raised his other hand and touched it.
“Like silk, Sally.”
He studied her closely, noting the flush which began to touch her cheeks.
“Part of the game is for you to keep looking me in the eye.”
“Well, I’ll be—Go on, I’m game.”
“Is it hard to sit like this—silently? Do I do it badly?”
“No, you show lots of practice. How many have you tried this method on, Bard?”
He made a vague gesture and then, smiling: “Millions, Sally, and they all liked it.”
“So do I.”
And they laughed together, and grew serious at the same instant.
“All silence—like this?” she queried.
“No; after a while I would say: ‘You are beautiful.’”
“You don’t get a blue ribbon for that, Bard.”
“Not for the words, but the way they’re said, which shows I mean them.”
She blinked as though to clear her eyes and then met his stare again.
“You know you are beautiful, Sally.”
“With a pug nose—freckles—and all that?”
“Just a tip-tilt in the nose, Sally. Why, it’s charming. And you have everything else—young, strong, graceful, clear.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“Clear? Fresh and colourful like the sunset over the desert. Do you understand?”
Her eyes went down to consider.
“I s’pose I do.”
“With a touch of awe in it, because the silence and the night are coming, and the stars walk down, one by one—one by one. And the wind is low, soft, musical, whispering, as you do now—What if this were not a game of suppose, Sally?”
She wrenched herself suddenly away, rising.
“I’m tired of supposing!” she cried.
“Then we’ll call it all real. What of that?”
That colour was unmistakably high now; it ran down from her cheeks and even stained the pure white of the throat where the flap of the shirt was open. He was excited as a hunter who has tracked some new and dangerous animal and at last driven it to bay, holding his gun poised, and not knowing whether or not it will prove vulnerable.
He stepped close, eager, prepared for any wild burst of temper; but she let him take her hands, let him draw her close, bend back her head; hold her closer still, till the warmth and softness of her body reached him, but when his lips came close she said quietly: “Are you a rotter, Bard?”
He stiffened and the smile went out on his lips. He stepped back.
She repeated: “Are you a rotter?”
He raised the one hand which he still retained and touched it to his lips.
“I am very sorry,” said Anthony, “will you forgive me?”
And with her eyes large and grave upon him she answered: “I wonder if I can!”
Butch Conklin looked up, raising his bandaged head slowly, like a white flag of truce, with a stain of red growing through the cloth. He stared at the two, raised a hand to his head as though to rub away the dream, found a pain too real for a dream, and then, like a crab which has grown almost too old to walk, waddled on hands and knees, slowly, from the room and melted silently into the dark beyond.
CHAPTER XVIII
FOOLISH HABITS
A sharp noise of running feet leaped from the dust of the street and clattered through the doorway; the two turned. A swarthy man, broad of shoulder, was the first, and afterward appeared Nash.
“Conklin?” called Deputy Glendin, and swept the room with his startled glance. “Where’s Conklin?”
He was not there; only a red stain remained on the floor to show where he had lain.
“Where’s Conklin?” called Nash.
“I’m afraid,” whispered Bard quickly to the girl, “that it was more than a game of suppose.”
He said easily to the other two: “He had enough. His share of trouble came to-night; I let him go.”
“Young feller,” growled Glendin, “you ain’t been in town a long while, but I’ve heard a pile too much about you already. What you mean by takin’ the law into your own hands?”
“Wait,” said Nash, his keen eyes on the two, “I guess I understand.”
“Let’s have it, then.”
Still the steady eyes of Nash passed from Sally Fortune to Bard and back again.
“This feller bein’ a tenderfoot, he don’t understand our ways; maybe he thinks the range is a bit freer than it is.”
“That’s the trouble,” answered Glendin, “he thinks too damned much.”
“And does quite a pile besides thinkin’,” murmured Nash, but too low for the others to hear it.
He hesitated, and then, as if making up his mind by a great effort: “There ain’t no use blamin’ him; better let it drop, Glendin.”
“Nothin’ else to do, Steve; but it’s funny Sally let him do it.”
“It is,” said Nash with emphasis, “but then women is pretty funny in lots of ways. Ready to start, Bard?”
“All ready.”
“S’long, Sally.”
“Good-night, Miss Fortune.”
“Evenin’, boys. We’ll be lookin’ for you back in Eldara to-morrow night, Bard.”
And her eyes fixed with meaning on Nash.
“Certainly,” answered the other, “my business ought not to take longer than that.”
“I’ll take him by the shortest cut,” said Nash, and the two went out to their horses.
They had difficulty in riding the trail side by side, for though the roan was somewhat rested by the delay at Eldara it was impossible to keep him up with Bard’s prancing piebald, which sidestepped at every shadow. Yet the tenderfoot never allowed his mount to pass entirely ahead of the roan, but kept checking him back hard, turning toward Nash with an apology each time he surged ahead. It might have been merely that