"Oh, I don't know as it's necessary to disappoint her," said Haines.
"If the State of Montana don't know how to entertain a lady from the
East as she likes to be entertained it's time to quit bein' a State at
all."
"Hal!" Mrs. Haines eyed her husband sternly. "I want you to remember who Pauline Marvin is. I'm not going to have her frightened by any of your wild jokes."
Haines burst into a ringing laugh.
"Honest, my dear, I promised that young lady if she ever came to Rockvale she'd see all the Wild West I told her about. I gave her my word. You don't want to make me out a liar, do you?"
"You can say that conditions have changed greatly in the last two years."
"Oh, come, just one little hold-up the day she gets here. She'll think it's great. She'll think she's the lost heiress that was carried off in the mountains—the one I told her about."
"I tell you I will not hear a word of it. She may be ill or something; it would scare her to death."
"I'll ask her if she's ill before I let the boys rob the buck-board.
What dye say, mother? Just this once."
His boyish joy in the prank brought laughter to her eyes, and he knew that his sins would be condoned.
Four days later Hicks, who looked as far from home in his excellent clothes as the clothes looked far from home in Rockvale, alighted, from a lumbering local train. He made an inquiry of a man on the platform, and, carrying a heavy suitcase, slouched up the main street of the town.