His partner's cheeks were patched with roses. Shyly the long, thick lashes lifted and let the big brown eyes meet his blue ones. “Maybe I'm afraid for both of us.”
“Would you care if one of their pills happened along in the scrimmage and put me out of business? Honest, would you?”
“You haven't any right to talk that way. It's cruel,” was the reply that burst from the pretty lips, and he noticed that at his suggestion the roses had died from soft cheeks.
“Well, I won't talk that way any more, little partner,” he answered gaily, taking the small hand in his. “For reasons good. I'm fire-proof. The Mexican bullet hasn't been cast yet that can find Bucky O'Connor's heart.”
“But you mustn't think that, either, and be reckless,” was the next injunction. The shy laugh rang like music. “That's why I want to go along, to see that you behave yourself properly.”
“Oh, I'll behave,” he laughed; for the young man found it very easy to be happy when those sweet eyes were showing concern for him. “I've got several good reasons why I don't aim to get bumped off just yet. Heaps of first-rate reasons. I'll tell you what some of them are one of these days,” he dared to add.
“You had better tell me now.” The gaze that fell before his steady eyes was both shy and eager.
“No, I reckon I'll wait, Curly,” he answered, turning away with a long breath. “Well, we better go out and get some grub, tortillas and frijoles, don't you think?”
“Just as you like.” The lad's breath was coming a little fast. They had been on the edge of some moment of intimacy that Bucky's partner both longed for and dreaded. “But you have not told me yet whether I can go with you.”
“You can't. I'm sorry. I'd like first-rate to take you, if you want to go, but I can't do it. I hate to disappoint you if you're set on it, but I've got to, kid. Anything else you want I'll be glad to do.”
He added this last because Frank looked so broken-hearted about it.
“Very well.” Swift as a flash came the demand: “Tell me these heaps of first-rate reasons you were mentioning just now.”
Under the sun-tan he flushed. “I reckon I'll have to make another exception, Curly. Those reasons ain't ripe yet for telling.”
“Then if you are—if anything happens—I'll never know them. And you promised you would tell me—you, who pretend to hate a liar so,” she scoffed.
“Would it do if I wrote those reasons and left them in a sealed envelope? Then in case anything happened you could open it and satisfy that robust curiosity of yours.” He recognized that he had trapped himself, and he was making the best bargain left him.
“You may write them, if you like. But I'm going to open the letter, anyway. The reasons belong to me now. You promised.”
“I'll make a new deal with you, then,” he smiled. “I'll take awful good care of myself to-night if you'll promise not to open the envelope for two weeks unless—well, unless that something happens that we ain't expecting.”
“Call it a week, and it's a bargain.”
“Better say when we're back across the line again. That may be inside of three days, if everything goes well,” he threw in as a bait.
“Done. I'm to open the letter when we cross the line into Texas.”
Bucky shook the little hand that was offered him and wished mightily that he had the right to celebrate with more fervent demonstrations.
That afternoon the ranger wrote with a good deal of labor the letter he had promised. It appeared to be a difficult thing for him to deliver himself even on paper of those good and sufficient reasons. He made and destroyed no less than half a dozen openings before at last he was fairly off. Meanwhile, Master Frank, busy over some alterations in Bucky's gypsy suit, took pleasure in deriding with that sweet voice the harassed correspondent.
“It might be a love letter from the pains you take with it. Would you like me to come and help you with it?” the sewer railed merrily.
“I ain't used to letter writing much,” apologized the scribe, wiping his bedewed brow, which had suddenly gone a shade more flushed.
“Apparently not. I expect, from the time you give it, the result will be a literary classic.”
“Don't you disturb me, Curly, or I'll never get done,” implored the tortured ranger.
“You're doing well. You've only been an hour and a half on six lines,” the tormentor mocked.
Womanlike, she was quite at her ease, since he was very far indeed from being at his. Yet she had a problem of her own she was trying to decide.
Had he discovered, after all, that she was not a boy, and had his reasons—the ones he was trying to tell in that disturbing letter—anything to do with that discovery? Such a theory accounted for several things she had noticed in him of late. There was an added respect in his manner for her. He never now invaded the room recognized as hers without a specific invitation, nor did he seem any longer to chafe at the little personal marks of fastidiousness that had at first appeared to annoy him. To be sure, he ordered her about, just as he had been in the habit of doing at first. But it was conceivable that this might be a generous blind to cover up his knowledge of her sex.
“How do you spell guessed—one s or two?” he presently asked, out of the throes of composition.
She spelled it, and added demurely: “Adore has only one d”
Bucky laid down his pen and pretended to glare at him. “You young rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you young imp, and you'll never grow up to be a gentleman.”
Their glances caught and held, the minds of each of them busy over that last prediction of his. For one long instant masks were off and both were trying to find an answer to a question in the eyes opposite. Then voluntarily each gaze released the other in a confusion of sweet shame. For the beating of a lash, soul had looked into naked soul, all disguise stripped from them. She knew that he knew. Yet in that instant when his secret was surprised from him another secret, sweeter than the morning song of birds, sang its way into both their hearts.
Chapter 10.
The Hold-up of the M. C. P. Flyer
Agua Negra is twelve miles from Chihuahua as the crow flies, but if one goes by rail one twists round thirty sinuous miles of rough mountainous country in the descent from the pass to the capital of the State. The ten men who slipped singly or by twos out of the city in the darkness that evening and met at the rendezvous of the Santa Dolorosa mission did not travel by rail to the pass, but followed a horseback trail which was not more than half the distance.
At the mission O'Halloran and his friend found gathered half a dozen Mexicans, one or two of them tough old campaigners, the rest young fellows eager for the excitement of their first active service.
“Is Juan Valdez here yet?” asked O'Halloran, peering around in the gloom.
“Not yet; nor Manuel Garcia,” answered a young fellow.
Bucky was introduced to those present under the name of Alessandro Perdoza, and presently also to the two missing members of the party who arrived together a few moments later. Juan Valdez was the son of the candidate who was opposing the reelection of Megales, and Manuel Garcia was his bosom friend, and the young man to whom his sister was engaged. They were both excellent types of the honorable aristocratic young Mexican. They were lightly built, swarthy your men, possessed of that perfect grace and courtesy which can be found at its best in the Spanish races. Gay, handsome young cavaliers as they were,