Manzanita nodded.
Halfaman raked his cap to the other side of his head.
“Well, now, when Wing o’ the Crow gets here with her dad—that’s Abishua—I want you to meet her—see? You ’n’ her oughta be good pals. She’s as pretty as you are—and I’ll tell the world that’s progressin’ some. So you meets her—see?—and you two gets nice and acquainted—see?—and then I wanta slip you an earful o’ somethin’ I got on my chest. Then all you gotta do, ma’am, is use your inflooence—see? Get me? Now I gotta beat it. I’m mendin’ harness. Please’ to meet you, ma’am!”
And he hurried away, whistling out of one corner of his mouth.
“Why, what a funny man!” remarked Manzanita laughingly. “What on earth was he talking about?”
“For a heart,” said The Falcon earnestly, “he has a big nugget of gold. He was talking about his sweetheart, Wing o’ the Crow, a shanty queen. But I’m afraid he didn’t explain very well.”
Falcon the Flunky did, however, and now it seemed that his listener was more interested. She looked less frequently toward the various places to which Mangan betook himself, trailed by Mart and the cigar, and watched The Falcon’s face.
It was a fine, frank face to watch; and more and more, as thoughts of her petty little game took to the background, she realized that here was a sincere, likable young man with brains that were anything but sluggish. She liked his eyes and their steady, brotherly look; she noticed that his hands were trim and clean and strong. His careful articulation, effortless though it seemed, told volumes about his upbringing. She had sought out Falcon the Flunky to use as a tool in her willful game of thwarting her scheming father and Hunter Mangan; and now she realized that she had picked the wrong man for her purpose. She actually was going to like the flunky.
This would never do! She despised herself now. Suppose the flunky had proved to be an uncouth, uninteresting, ignorant person, and that she had tried to use him in the furtherance of her own silly ends! Her confidence in her own desirability was great, spoiled as she had been by adoring vaqueros. Would it not have been terrible if she had caused a poor, unfortunate flunky to fall in love with her? She blushed for shame at her unthinking selfishness.
But this man was different He was well knit and muscular, good to look upon, refined, and mysteriously interesting. If he wanted to fall in love with her, he should be perfectly able to take care of his own interests in such a matter. So if he wanted to go and fall in love with her—why, he could just go ahead and do it!