"You infernal——" exclaimed the man, stepping toward him.
"Oh!" cried Sue Belle, raising her head, "he didn't. I'm crying for joy!"
As he caught sight of her the man bowed instantly toward her with the grace of a gentleman who recognized under any accident of clothes a lady.
"My husband is ill," said Sue Belle, swiftly divining another friend, one of another class, too; "he broke his arm yesterday, and I had to take our horse and ride here for him and the two little children, and this gentleman——"
"Lord!" said the cowboy, "I ain't no gent. I'm a cow-puncher."
"This gentleman came after me and promised to protect me from everybody. And that is why I cried."
"Sir," said the second man, extending his hand, "I beg your pardon for my suspicions. You are a gentleman."
"Nobody never called me one before," growled the cowboy, much embarrassed, shaking the proffered hand awkwardly but heartily. "I don't care fer no lot myself an' I'm goin' to hold this lot next to hern fer the little kids."
"Well, that's just about what I came for, too. I'm a student, a senior at Columbia College, New York, madam," he said, turning to Sue Belle, "out here for the summer to look after some of my father's Kansas property. I thought I'd run down here just for the fun of it. You said you had two children, did you not?"
"Yes, sir."