"Got your notebook handy, Marge?" Young Bud, looking altogether different, though not so handsome, in a tailored suit left over from college, and a new straw hat that gave no excuse for wearing cameo pins in the brim, crossed the lobby of Fort Benton's best hotel to where Marge was sitting beside Maw staring out at the shifting crowds with puckered brows, her thoughts no doubt dwelling upon picturesque effects. "This is Miss Bonnie Prosser, and I thought you might like to make a note of the fact that she is the high priestess in the temple where I worship; the goddess of the Golden Arrow, and—"
"For the love of Moses, what kinda talk is that, Bud Larkin? Bonnie's too sweet and pretty a girl to be made fun of right in public, like this. I been waitin' for a chance to git you two girls acquainted," cried Maw, from the depths of a leather rocking chair.
"Why—why—she's exactly like my heroine!" cried Marge, her eyes dancing with excitement. "I wrote the sweetest love scene just before we left home—"
"Too late, too late," crowed Bud, his lips curving into the smile of a happy boy. "I beat you to it, Marge."
"Now, hush," drawled Bonnie, in a voice amazingly low and sweet and vibrant—just the voice one would want to hear from that smooth young throat and lips formed for laughter. "I'd love to be your heroine, Miss—may I call you Marge? I've so wanted a girl like you to come into the range country and give me a sympathetic ear now and then. Ever since I first heard about you I've been planning to come over and steal you. We live right next to the reservation, and there's the dearest old squaw I want you to write up. And I know so many places where I want to take you. When this trial is over, I want you to come home with me. We're going to be the best of friends. I always know, the moment I look at a person. Don't you?"
"Them girls don't need you, Buddy," Maw shrewdly observed. "Set down here where I can talk to you. Lean over here. Are you and Bonnie engaged?"
"Yes, ma'am," Bud confessed meekly. "Have been, Maw, for almost a month."
"Well, I ain't a mite su'prised, and I'm real glad. Set down, can't you? Let 'em alone till they get acquainted. I want to talk to you private. Now. What kinda luck did you have, Buddy? Are you goin' to be able to give that money back to Palmer—or the bank, or whoever it belongs to?"
All the joy went out of Bud's face. He shook his head, his lips pressed tight.
"Who told you, Maw?"