"Good God!" he shouted. "It's a woman!"
"Yes, I am a woman," answered Sue Belle, desperately.
"Well, I'm d——d!" he burst out.
"You've ordered me away from the lot, but——" she went on, heedless of his interruption.
"Well, gimme a kiss, sis, an' you kin stay on it," said the man, with a hideous leer.
Sue Belle looked around desperately. She was practically alone on the prairie save for this man and the other one, now about a mile distant. The station and land-office were too far away for her to summon assistance from them. She was absolutely helpless, entirely in this man's power.
"Will you let me alone if I do?" she asked, at last.
"Oh, come, now, you're too pretty to be left alone, my dear," said the man, coming closer.
Resisting the impulse to shriek, she faced him hatchet in hand. With swift feminine instinct she comprehended him in a glance. He was just an ordinary kind of a cowboy, bad when his bad side was uppermost, but capable of all sorts of nobility and self-sacrifice if his good side could be reached. She thought swiftly then,—she had to. She made up her mind to appeal to him.
"Wait," she said; "don't come nearer until I speak to you. You're right, I am a woman. I have a husband and two children. We had a little fortune which we put into a farm in Cimarron County five years ago. Through a succession of misfortunes we've lost every dollar. We have nothing except a team and this horse. We came down here to try to get something for our children. Yesterday my husband fell and broke his arm. He was going to ride in here. He could not do it. I had to make the run in place of him. I left him alone, back there on the edge of the strip, with his broken arm. With the last ten dollars we had on earth I bought these boots and employed a negro boy whom I never saw before to bring my little children after me. I want this lot. I won it fairly. It's the best lot in the town. But you are a man; you are stronger than I. You may—" she flushed painfully, "kiss me if you must,—if you will give me your word of honor that after that you will leave me this lot. You understand that I—I—only submit to it—for the sake of the children and for my poor husband."