Her eyes were full of tears now, as she clasped her hands, looked at him appealingly, and waited with burning face, trembling lips, and heaving bosom.
"Ma'am," said the cowboy, his face also flushing under his tan, as he took off his sombrero, "I don't want no kiss. Leastways, I don't take no kiss under these circumstances. You kin have that there lot. I jist rode in yere fer the fun of the thing. I don't want no lot nohow. What'd I do with it? Sell it fer booze. You beat me on the square, though if it had been five miles farther I'd a beat you. Them Kentucky hosses—I 'low he's a Kentucky hoss?—ain't no good fer long-distance runnin' side this flea-bitten bronc. I don't want no lot noways. You stay right here on that there lot, an' fer fear less'n somebody might come along an' try to make you give it up, I'll stay with you with my gun handy."
"Thank you and God bless you," said Sue Belle, gratefully, looking at him with swimming eyes.
Then she put her head down on Kentucky's saddle, where the horse stood cropping the short grass, threw her arm around his neck, and sobbed as if her heart would break. The cowboy surveyed her in astonishment and terror; but, before he could say anything, the second man came racing up.
"Well, you two young fellows have the best lots in the place, I suppose. I'll have to take what's left," said the newcomer, cheerfully. "Great Jupiter! what's that fellow crying about?"
"'Taint a feller," said the cowboy, "it's a female, a woman."
"A woman!" exclaimed the other. "Say, you cowboy," with an ugly look on his face, "have you been making a woman cry?"
"Say, you cowboy, have you been making a woman cry?"
"I reckon I hev," answered the cowboy, nonchalantly.