CHAPTER II
“Aren’t we going to stop at all, Mr. Sheriff Man?”
A soft, plaintive note in the voice made Kurt Walters turn the brake of an old, rickety automobile and halt in the dust-white road, as he cast a sharply scrutinizing glance upon the atom of a girl who sat beside him. She was a dejected, dusty, little figure, drooping under the jolt of the jerking car and the bright rays of hills-land sunshine. She was young—in years; young, too, in looks, as Kurt saw when she raised her eyes which were soft and almond-shaped; but old, he assumed, in much that she should not have been.
She had found it a long, hard ride across the plains, and the end of her endurance had been prefaced by frequent sighs, changes of position and softly muffled exclamations, all seemingly unnoted by the man beside her, whose deep-set eyes had remained fixed on the open space ahead, his slim, brown hands gripping the wheel, his lean, sinewy body bending slightly forward.
His tenseness relaxed; a startled, remorseful look came into his eyes as he saw two tears coursing down her cheeks. They were unmistakably real tears,—though, as he was well aware, they came from physical causes alone. Still, they penetrated the armor of unconcern with which he had girded himself.
“What for?” he asked curtly.
“What for!” she echoed, her mouth quivering into pathetic droops. “For rest, of course. You may be used to this kind of locomotion, but I’m not very well upholstered, and I’m shaken to bits. Fact is, I’m just all pegged out, old man. Have a heart, and stop for repairs. What’s your rush, anyway? I can’t get loose hereabouts, and I haven’t anywhere to go, anyhow. Didn’t mind getting ‘took’ at all, at all. How many more miles is it to the end of your trail? This is a trail, isn’t it?”
“A great many miles,” he replied, “and it was on your account more than any other that I was hurrying to get to the—”