She gave a queer little laugh as he talked. She had put a taboo on his love story herself, but she resented the perfectly unmoved good humor with which he seemed to be accepting her verdict. She made up her mind to punish him, but he gave her no chance. As he helped her to dismount, he said:
“I'll take the horses round to the stable, Miss Mackenzie. Probably I won't see you again before I leave, but I'm hoping to meet you again in Tucson one of these days. Good-by.”
She nodded a curt good-by and passed into the house. She was vexed and indignant, but had too strong a sense of humor not to enjoy a joke even when it was against herself.
“I forgot to ask him whether he loves me or Tucson more, and as one of the subjects seems to be closed I'll probably never find out,” she told herself, but with a queer little tug of pain in her laughter.
Next moment she was in the arms of her father.
Chapter 20.
Back to God's Country
To minimize the risk, Megales and Carlo left the prison by the secret passage, following the fork to the river bank and digging at the piled-up sand till they had forced an exit. O'Halloran met them here with horses, and the three men followed the riverwash beyond the limits of the town and cut across by a trail to a siding on the Central Mexican Pacific tracks. The Irishman was careful to take no chances, and kept his party in the mesquit till the headlight of an approaching train was visible.
It drew up at the siding, and the three men boarded one of the two cars which composed it. The coach next the engine was occupied by a dozen trusted soldiers, who had formerly belonged to the bodyguard of Megales. The last car was a private one, and in it the three found Henderson, Bucky O'Connor, and his little friend, the latter still garbed as a boy.
Frances was exceedingly eager to don again the clothes proper to her sex, and she had promised herself that, once habited as she desired, nothing could induce her ever to masquerade again. Until she met and fell in love with the ranger she had thought nothing of it, since it had been merely a matter of professional business to which she had been forced. Indeed, she had sometimes enjoyed the humor of the deception. It had lent a spice o enjoyment to a life not crowded with it. But after she met Bucky there had grown up in her a new sensitiveness. She wanted to be womanly, to forget her turbid past and the shifts to which she had sometimes been put. She had been a child; she was now a woman. She wanted to be one of whom he need be in no way ashamed.
When their train began to pull out of the depot at Chihuahua she drew a deep sigh of relief.
“It's good to get away from here back to the States. I'm tired of plots and counterplots. For the rest of my life I want to be just a woman,” she said to Bucky.
The young man smiled. “I reckon I must quit trying to make you a gentleman. Fact is, I don't want you to be one any more.”
She slanted a look at him to see what that might mean and another up the car to make sure that Henderson was out of hearing.
“It was rather hopeless, wasn't it?” she smiled. “We'll do pretty well if we succeed in making me a lady in course of time. I've a lot to learn, you know.”
“Well, you got lots of time to learn it,” he replied cheerfully. “And I've got a notion tucked away in the back of my haid that you haven't got such a heap to study up. Mrs. Mackenzie will put you next to the etiquette wrinkles where you are shy.”
A shadow fell on the piquant, eager face beside him. “Do you think she will love me?”
“I don't think. I know. She can't help it.”
“Because she is my mother? Oh, I hope that is true.”
“No, not only because she is your mother.”
She decided to ask for no more reasons. Henderson, pleased at the wide stretch of plain as only one who had missed the open air for many years could be, was on the observation platform in the rear of the car, one glance at his empty seat showed her. There was no safety for her shyness in the presence of that proverbial three which makes a crowd, and she began to feel her heart again in panic as once before. She took at once the opening she had given.
“I do need a mother so much, after growing up like Topsy all these years. And mine is the dearest woman in the world. I fell in love with her before, and I did not know who she was when I was at he ranch.”
“I'll agree to the second dearest in the world, but I reckon you shoot too high when you say the plumb dearest.”
“She is. We'll quarrel if you don't agree,” trying desperately to divert him from the topic she knew he meant to pursue. For in the past two days he had been so busy helping O'Halloran that he had not even had a glimpse of her. As a consequence of which each felt half-dubious of the other's love, and Frances felt wholly shy about expressing her own or even listening to his.
“Well, we're due for a quarrel, I reckon. But we'll postpone it till we got more time to give it.” He drew a watch from his pocket and glanced at it “In less than fifteen minutes Mike and our two friends who are making their getaway will come in that door Henderson just went out of. That means we won't get a chance to be alone together, for about two days. I've got something to say to you, Curly Haid, that won't keep that long with out running my temperature clear up. So I'm allowing to say it right now immediate. No, you don't need to turn them brown appealers on me. It won't do a mite of good. It's Bucky to the bat and he's bound to make a hit or strike out.”
“I think I hear Mr. Henderson coming,” murmured Frances, for lack of something more effective to say.
“Not him. He's hogtied to the scenery long enough to do my business. Now, it won't take me long if I get off right foot first. You read my letter, you said?”
“Which letter?” She was examining attentively the fringe of the sash she wore.
“Why, honey, that love-letter I wrote you. If there was more than one it must have been wrote in my sleep, for I ce'tainly disremember it.”
He could just hear her confused answer: “Oh, yes, I read that. I told you that before.”
“What did you think? Tell me again.”
“I thought you misspelled feelings.”
“You don't say. Now, ain't that too bad? But, girl o' mine, I expect you were able to make it out, even if I did get the letters to milling around wrong. I meant them feelings all right. Outside of the spelling, did you have any objections to them,
“How can I remember what you wrote in that letter several days ago?”
“I'll bet you know it by heart, honey, and, if you don't, you'll find it in your inside vest pocket, tucked away right close to your heart.”
“It isn't,” she denied, with a blush.
“Sho! Pinned to your shirt then, little pardner. I ain't particular which. Point is, if you need to refresh that ailin' memory of yours, the document is—right handy. But you don't need to. It just says one little sentence over and over again. All you have got to do is to say one little word, and you don't have to say it but once.”
“I don't understand you,” her lips voiced.
“You understand me all right. What my letter said was 'I love you,' and what you have got to say is: 'Yes'.”
“But that doesn't mean anything.”
“I'll make out the meaning when you say it.”
“Do I have to say it?”
“You have to if you feel it.”
Slowly the big brown eyes came up to meet