“You hop in with me, Sally,” urged Ike, blushing very red. “I’m goin’ to Bullhide.”
“Go joy-ridin’ with you, Mr. Stedman?” responded the schoolma’am. “I don’t know about that. Are you to be trusted with that automobile?”
“I tell yuh I got it gentled,” declared Ike. “And I got to be moving on mighty quick.” He told Sally why in a few words and immediately the young lady was interested.
“That Ruth Fielding! Isn’t she a plucky one for a Down East girl? But she’s too young to nurse that sick man. And she’ll catch the fever herself like enough.”
“Hope not,” grunted Ike. “That would be an awful misfortune. She’s the nicest little thing that ever grazed on this range—yuh hear me!”
“Well,” said Sally, briskly. “I got to go to town and I might as well take my life in my hands and go with you, Ike,” and she swung herself into the seat beside him.
Ike started the machine again. He was delighted. Never before had Sally Dickson allowed him to be alone with her more than a scant few moments at a time. Ike began to swallow hard, the perspiration stood on his brow and he grew actually pale around the mouth. It seemed to him as though everything inside of him rose up in his throat. As he told about it long afterward, if somebody had shot him through the body just then it would only have made a flesh-wound!
“Sally!” he gasped, before her father’s store and the schoolhouse were out of sight.
“Why, Ike! what’s the matter with you? Are you sick?”
“N-no! I ain’t sick,” mumbled the bashful one.