“I reckon you think I’m kind of a mounted bum, a grub-liner, or something like that,” said Smith after a time.
“To be frank, I have wondered who you are.”
“Have you? Have you, honest?” asked Smith delightedly.
“Well—you’re different, you know. I can’t explain just how, but you are not like the others who come and go at the ranch.”
“No,” Smith replied with some irony; “I’m not like that there Tubbs.” He added laconically, “I’m no angel, me—Smith.”
The Schoolmarm laughed. Smith’s denial was so obviously superfluous.
“There was a time when I’d do ’most any old thing,” he went on, unmindful of her amusement. “It was only a few years ago that there was no law north of Cheyenne, and a feller got what he wanted with his gun. I got my share. I come from a country where they sleep between sheets, but I got a lickin’ that wasn’t comin’ to me, and I quit the flat when I was thirteen. I’ve been out amongst ’em since.”
The desire to reform somebody, which lies dormant in every woman’s bosom, began to stir in the Schoolmarm’s.
“But you—you wouldn’t ’do any old thing’ now, would you?”
Smith hesitated, and a variety of expressions succeeded one another upon his face. It was an awkward moment, for, under the uplifting influence of the feeling which possessed him, he had an odd desire to tell this girl only the truth.