The foreman slapped his knee enthusiastically: “Fine! Fine!” he exulted. “That fellow has got brains, plenty of them! And he’ll make use of them to the good of this country, too, before we get through with him.”
Shields continued: “After he sic’d the chumps of the Cross Bar-8 on the Apaches he shore raised the devil on the ranch and I was asked to go out and run things, which I did, or rather thought I would do. Charley and I and the two Larkin boys laid out on the plain all night, covered up with sand, waiting for him to show up between us and the windows–and the first thing I saw in the morning was Helen’s flower pot here–it used to be Margaret’s–setting up on top of a pile of sand under my very nose where he had stuck it while I waited for him–and blamed if he hadn’t signed his name in the sand at its base!” He suddenly turned to his sister: “Tell Tom about him calling on you while I was waiting for him out on the ranch, Helen.”
Helen did so and the way she told it caused the women to look keenly at her.
Blake laughed heartily: “Now, don’t that beat all!” he cried.
“It don’t beat this,” responded the sheriff, turning again to Helen. “Tell him about the stage coach, Sis.”
“Well, I don’t know much about the first part of it,” she replied. “All I remember is a terrible ride –oh, it was awful!” she cried, shuddering as she remembered the tortures of the Concord. “But when we stopped and after I managed to get out of the coach I saw the driver carrying a man on his shoulders and coming toward us. He laid his burden down and revived him–and he was a young man, and covered with blood.” Then she paused: “He was real nice and polite and didn’t seem to think that he had done anything out of the ordinary. Then we went on and he left us.”
The sheriff laughed and leveled an accusing finger at her:
“You have left out a whole lot, Sis,” he said affectionately. “Helen acted just like the thoroughbred she is, Tom,” he continued. “I guess Bill told you all about it, for he’s aired it purty well. Why, she even lost her gold pin a-helping him!” and he grinned broadly.
Helen shot him a warning glance, but it was too late; Mary suddenly sat bolt upright, her expression one of shocked surprise.
“Helen Shields!” she cried, “and I never thought of it before! How could you do it! Why, that horrid man will show your pin and boast about it to everybody! The idea! I’m surprised at you!”