“Oh, go off and lie down! You make me tired,” O’Neill snarled disgustedly from the saddle and loped back up the trail, thinking not of Boyce, but of the girl he had seen walk her horse to the side porch of the house and sit watching them, evidently listening.
How much she had heard, he did not know—nor did he care at the moment. But now he wished that he had thought of something wittily biting to say at the last, instead of that hackneyed retort which any roughneck puncher on the range might have made.
The rasping voice of the Bar B Bostonian followed him, shouting threats and imprecations which the increasing distance blurred to a vague mouthing of rage. Bluster, O’Neill reminded himself, was always a mark of weakness, or so folks said. If the rule held, then the Honorable Standish Boyce was all bark and no bite, and could safely be ignored.
He had ridden a mile along the side of a ridge, taking it easy on the way home, when a horse lunged out through a clump of bushes into the trail ahead of him and wheeled so that the rider faced him. It was the girl he had seen at Boyce’s house, and she had evidently cut across country with the deliberate intention of intercepting him. At any rate, she was waiting for him to ride up. Which Patrick O’Neill did right willingly.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ranger,” she greeted him coolly, when he drew near. “I’m Isabelle Boyce, and I’m supposed to be a chip off the old block. At least, the neighbors say I am.”
O’Neill laughed as he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, brown hair. “I’d have to prove that for myself, Miss Boyce. Is this a continuation——”
“Oh, no, indeed! It’s an explanation. I heard how father talked to you, and I heard how you talked back to father. So I just thought——”
“If you heard your father, you must admit I had the patience of Job and used it.”
“And left father boiling!” she laughed, flicking the bushes with her quirt. “I was really in hopes, Mr. er—er——”
“Patrick O’Neill, at your service.” Pat reined in alongside her and the horses started on up the trail at a walk.