“He don’t deserve it, the durned scalawag!”
“Deserve what?” questioned Barbara.
“You,” muttered Linton, with an embarrassed grin. “Shucks, I wasn’t thinkin’ I was talkin’ out loud. I’m sure gettin’ locoed.”
“Who doesn’t deserve me?” asked Barbara.
“Harlan!” declared Linton, with a subtle glance at the girl. “He ain’t in no ways fit to be thinkin’ serious thoughts about a girl like you.”
“Has he been thinking serious thoughts?” Her eyes dropped from Linton’s and the latter grinned widely.
“Thinkin’ them! He’s been talkin’ them. Talked them all the time him an’ me was stretched out in the big room, gettin’ over our scratches. That man is plumb locoed. I couldn’t get him to talk nothin’ else. When I told him about the governor sendin’ him congratulations, an’ offerin’ to do somethin’ handsome for him, he says: ‘You say she ain’t worryin’ none about things? Red, do you think she’d hook up with a guy like me—that’s got a bad reputation?’”
Linton shot a side glance at Barbara and saw a flush steal into her cheeks. He concealed a broad grin with the palm of his hand and then said, gruffly:
“I answers him as such a impertinent question ought to be answered. Says I—‘Harlan, you’re a damned fool!’—askin’ your pardon, ma’am. A girl like Barbara Morgan ain’t goin’ to throw herself away on a no-good outlaw. Not none! Why, ma’am, he’s an outlaw at heart as well as by reputation. He’s clean bad—there ain’t a bit of good in him. Didn’t he go to Haydon deliberate? An’ didn’t he keep you in suspense about what was goin’ on—not tellin’ you anything until he had to? Shucks!”
“But there was a method in that, Linton,” said Barbara; “he told me he was afraid I’d unconsciously betray him, and then he could not have done what he did.”