“I don’t want you to stay here!” she declared, angrily.
“I’m stayin’, ma’am.” His smile faded, and his eyes became serious—earnest.
“Later on—when things shape themselves up—I’ll tell you why I’m stayin’. But just now——”
She shrank from him, incredulous, a growing fear plain in her eyes. And before he could finish what he intended to say she had wheeled, and was running toward the ranchhouse.
He watched until she vanished through an open doorway; he heard the door slam, and caught the sound of bars being hurriedly dropped into place. And after that he stood for a time watching the house. No light came from within, and no other sound.
He frowned slightly, drawing a mental picture of the girl inside, yielding to the terror that had seized her. Then after a while he walked down along the corral fence until he came to another building—a bunkhouse. And for a long time he stood in the doorway of the building, watching the ranchhouse, afflicted with grim sympathy.
“It ain’t so damn’ cheerful, at that,” he mused. “I reckon she thinks she’s landed into trouble with both feet—with her dad cashin’ in like he did, an’ Deveny after her. It sure must be pretty hard to consider all them things. An’ on top of that I mosey along, with a reputation as a no-good son-of-a-gun, an’ scare the wits out of her with my homely mug. An’ I can’t tell her why she hadn’t ought to be scared. I call that mighty mean.”