“Permit me to compliment you on your thoughtfulness, Miss Rodney,” he said, in a most insinuating manner.
The rancher’s daughter looked puzzled and perturbed.
“I do not think I understand you,” she said, slowly.
“Surely you have done your best to make sport for us to-day. You have brought us some rare curiosities.”
Now Bart Hodge had a temper of his own, and he did not fancy being insulted, even though the person who offered the insult was a fire-eating cow-puncher. So Bart murmured:
“Oh, I don’t know! There are others!”
The foreman of the Lone Star looked astonished, and then scowled blackly.
“Were you referring to me, sir?”
Although the words came from his lips like the cut of a whip through the air, Hodge began to whistle in the most unconcerned manner possible, without even looking toward Indian Charlie.
Frank, who was keeping watch of everything, saw the red tide of anger surge into the face of the cowboy, and he knew Charlie was in a most dangerous mood.