So she stood, silently regarding Buck, who as silently regarded her. When she had first come upon him, in those few moments of unaccustomed softness when the hard mask of assertive manhood had been slipped aside, her questioning gaze had probed the depths of him, wondering and warming to what it found there. Her smile awoke Buck to a sense of his rudeness and he swept off his hat with the haste of embarrassment. "I 've come for Pickles," he blurted out, anxious to excuse his unwarranted presence.
"Is it—is it M'sieu Peters?" she questioned.
"That's me," admitted Buck. "Can I have him?" He smiled at the absurdity of his question. Of course she would be glad to get rid of such a mischievous little "cuss."
Rose considered. "Enter, M'sieu Peters. We will speak of it," she invited.
"I shore will," was the prompt acceptance. Buck's alacrity would have called forth hilarious chaffing from the Bar-20 punchers. It surprised himself. She set out a cup and a bottle on one end of the table and hastened to the other with an exclamation of dismay: "Hélas, mon pain!" and forthwith the "punch, punch!" was resumed, while Buck stared at the process and forgot to drink.
"Why do you take Fritz from me?" asked Rose.
Buck resumed his faculties with a grunt of disgust. "What's th' matter with me?" he asked himself. "Am I goin' loco or did Johnny Nelson bite me in my sleep? What was that: 'Take Fritz?'"
This was seeing the matter in a different light. Buck ran his fingers through his hair and looked helpless. He poured himself a drink. "Take Fritz? Take anything she wants? Why, I'd give her my shirt. There I go again—" and he savagely, in imagination, kicked himself.
"You see—I sort o' reckoned," he faltered, "Dutch bein' one o' my boys—Pickles—Fritz—ought to be taken care of, an'—"
"So—and you think I will not take care of him?"