"Wait. I will say what I want you to know. I like you—no! not in that way; not the way a woman should—the man she expects to marry. Perhaps if you had been—I am not sure—but I could not marry a drone. Oh! why don't you wake up! How can you go on from day to day with no thought but self-indulgence? You say you love me. Ask yourself: Is not that merely a form of self-indulgence? Oh, I know you would take care of me and defer to me and let me have my way in everything—you are that kind of a man—but to what end? That I might be the more pleasing to you. Is it your purpose to dawdle through life, taking only such pains as shall make things more pleasing to you?"
"Is that all, Margaret? Is it only because you fancy I'm a loafer?"
"But you are! You are! Oh! I don't know—I 'm not sure—"
"I 'm sure!" the exulting certainty in his voice startled her. "I 'm sure!" he repeated. "I may be a bit of an ass in some things but no woman would care as you care, what a man was or what he did unless she loved him. You love me, Margaret, thank God! Give me a chance. You 're only a girl, yet. Give me a year and if I go under, or you find I 'm wrong, I 'll thank you for the chance and never blame you. Will you?"
Her heart was pounding in suffocating throbs and she trembled like a leaf in the wind before the eager intensity of his gaze. A strong will held her in check, else she had given way then and there, but she faced him with a fine bravery. "Yes," she promised, "I will. Go away and make good."
"Make good! By Jove, that's what your father said. Make good—I 'll not forget it." His head bent low in an old-fashioned but becoming salute while her free hand rested unfelt for an instant upon the yellow hair, a gesture that was at once a blessing and a prayer.
CHAPTER III
BUCK MAKES FRIENDS
The town of Twin River straggled with indifferent impartiality along the banks of the Black Jack and Little Jill branches where they ran together to form the Jones' Luck River, two or three houses lying farther north along the main stream. The trail from Wayback, the nearest railway point, hugged the east bank of Jones' Luck, shaded throughout its course by the trees which lined the river, as they did all the streams in this part of the country: cottonwoods mostly, with an occasional ash or elm. Looking to the east, the rolling ground sloped upward toward a chain of hills; to the west, beyond the river, the country lay level to the horizon. On both sides of the trail the underbrush grew thick; spring made of it a perfect paradise of blossoms.
Boomerang, pet hobo of Twin River and the only one who ever dared to come back, left Little Nell's with his characteristic hurried shuffle and approached the wooden bridge where the Wayback trail crossed the Jill, and continued south to Big Moose. Boomerang was errand boy just now, useful man about the hotel or one of the saloons when necessity drove, at other times just plain bum. He was suspected of having been a soldier. A sharp "'tention" would startle him into a second's upright stiffness which after a furtive look around would relax into his customary shambling lack of backbone. He had one other amusing peculiarity: let a gun be discharged in his vicinity and there was trouble right away, trouble the gunner was not looking for; Boomerang would fly into such a fury of fighting rage, it was a town wonder that some indignant citizen had not sent him long ago where he never could come back.