LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 3.

       An Invitation Given and Accepted

       Table of Contents

      And already she had met him. Not only met him, but saved him from the just vengeance about to fall upon him. She had not yet seen her own ranch, had not spoken to a single one of her employees, for it had been a part of her plan to drop in unexpected and examine the situation before her foreman had a chance to put his best foot forward. So she had started alone from Gimlet Butte that morning in her machine, and had come almost in sight of the Lazy D ranch houses when the battle in the coulee invited her to take a hand.

      She had acted on generous impulse, and the unforeseen result had been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was the home of such courage, such virility, that her unconsenting admiration went out in spite of herself. He was, at any rate, a MAN, square-jawed, resolute, implacable. In the sinuous trail of his life might lie arson, robbery, murder, but he still held to that dynamic spark of self-respect that is akin to the divine. Nor was it possible to believe that those unblinking gray eyes, with the capability of a latent sadness of despair in them, expressed a soul entirely without nobility. He had a certain gallant ease, a certain attractive candor, that did not consist with villainy unadulterated.

      It was characteristic even of her impulsiveness that Helen Messiter curbed the swift condemnation that leaped to her lips when she knew that the man sitting beside her was the notorious bandit of the Shoshone fastnesses. She was not in the least afraid. A sure instinct told her he was not the kind of a man of whom a woman need have fear so long as her own anchor held fast. In good time she meant to let him have her unvarnished opinion of him, but she did not mean it to be an unconsidered one. Wherefore she drove the machine forward toward the camelbacked peak he had indicated, her eyes straight before her, a frown corrugating her forehead.

      For him, having made his dramatic announcement, he seemed content for the present with silence. He leaned back in the car and appreciated her with a coolness that just missed impudence. Certainly her appearance proclaimed her very much worth while. To dwell on the long lines of her supple young body, the exquisite throat and chin curve, was a pleasure with a thrill to it. As a physical creation, a mere innocent young animal, he thought her perfect; attuned to a fine harmony of grace and color. But it was the animating vitality of her, the lightness of motion, the fire and sparkle of expression that gave her the captivating charm she possessed.

      They were two miles nearer the camel-backed peak before he broke the silence.

      “Beats a bronco for getting over the ground. Think I'll have to get one,” he mused aloud.

      “With the money you took from the Ayr bank?” she flashed.

      “I might drive off some of your cows and sell them,” he countered, promptly. “About how much will they hold me up for a machine like this?”

      “This is only a runabout. You can get one for twelve or fourteen hundred dollars of anybody's money.”

      “Of yours?” he laughed.

      “I haven't that much with me. If you'll come over and hold up the ranch perhaps we might raise it among us,” she jeered.

      His mirth was genuine. “But right now I couldn't get more than how much off y'u?”

      “Sixty-three dollars is all I have with me, and I couldn't give you more—NOT EVEN IF YOU PUT RED HOT IRONS BETWEEN MY FINGERS.” She gave it to him straight, her blue eyes fixed steadily on him.

      Yet she was not prepared for the effect of her words. The last thing she had expected was to see the blood wash out of his bronzed face, to see his sensitive nostrils twitch with pain. He made her feel as if she had insulted him, as if she had been needlessly cruel. And because of it she hardened her heart. Why should she spare him the mention of it? He had not hesitated at the shameless deed itself. Why should she shrink before that wounded look 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.”

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