“You might call me Belle. Belle Delavan. Well, I came to Jumpoff because––I meant to jump. Yes, I’ll marry you––and the Lord have mercy on you, Tom Lorrigan, if I live to regret it.”
“Amen. Same to you,” grinned Tom. “It’s an even break, anyway. They don’t claim I’m sprouting wings. They say I’ve got split hoofs in my boots instead of feet, and wear my ears pointed at the top. But––but no girl has got any loop on me. I’ve been straight, as far as women goes. That’s my record up to the present. If you can stand for a little drinkin’ and gamblin’ and shootin’––”
Belle waved aside his self-depreciation. Young Tom was a handsome devil, and his eyes were keen and clear and looked right into her own, which was sufficient evidence of good faith for any woman with warm blood in her body.
“Tom Lorrigan, I’ve eaten just three soda 13 crackers, six marshmallows and one orange since yesterday noon,” said she irrelevantly. “I can’t be emotional when I’m half starved. Is there any place where I can get a piece of bread or something?”
“My Lord! Think of me standing here and not thinkin’ whether you’d had dinner or not! Sure, you can have something to eat.”
He took her by the arm, too penitent to be diffident over the unaccustomed gallantry, and hustled her toward the section house. His mind registered the fact that the bartender, the fireman, the brakeman and the conductor would shortly apologize abjectly for standing outside the saloon gawping at a lady, or they would need the immediate ministrations of a doctor. He hoped the girl had not noticed them.
“They’ll throw some grub together quick, over here,” he explained to the girl. “Everybody eats at the section house. It ain’t much of a place, but there ain’t any other place. And while you’re having dinner I’ll have the operator wire down to Lava for a marriage license to be sent up on the next train. The saloon man is a justice of the peace, and he’ll marry us right away, soon as you eat. And––”
“Without a license? I know it’s always done that way on the stage, but––but this isn’t going to be any stage marriage.”
“Well, but the license will be all made out and 14 on the way, and he’ll take my word for it and go ahead with the ceremony. If I tell him to, he will. It will be all right; I’ll make it all right. And then I can get a team from a ranch back here a ways, and take you right out to Devil’s Tooth. It’s the best way. This ain’t any place for a lady to stay. You’ll be comfortable out at the Devil’s Tooth––it’s clean, anyway.” He looked at her honest-eyed, and smiled again. “Yuh needn’t be afraid uh me. We’re rough enough and tough enough, and we maybe shoot up each other now and again, but we ain’t like city folks; we don’t double-cross women. Not ever.”
She said nothing, and when they had walked four steps farther he added with a sincere wish to set her at ease: “I could take you to some ranch and leave you till the license comes, if you think it wouldn’t be all right to get married now. But the womenfolks would talk your arm off, and you wouldn’t like it. And they’d talk about you when your back was turned. But if Scotty goes ahead and married us, I don’t see why––”