"I'm sorry," said Bowles. "The reason I asked was, Brig and I are planning to make a little trip somewhere, and if I thought there was any one searching for me I'd——"
"Oh, you don't need to run away!" explained Dixie hurriedly. "I'll tell you when to skip—but you don't know what you missed by not reading that letter I wrote you!"
"Well, direct the next one to Bowles, then!" he pleaded. "But, no joking, I wish you wouldn't call attention to that other name—it's likely to get me into difficulties."
"What kind of difficulties?" inquired Dixie Lee demurely; but Bowles only shook his head.
"I'm very sorry I can't tell you," he said; "but it means a great deal to me."
"Maybe I can help you," she suggested.
"Yes, indeed, you can!" assured Bowles, drawing nearer and smiling his naive smile. "Just don't tell anybody what you know, and let me have a chance. I've always been shut off from the world, you know—I've never had a chance. Just let me fight my way and see if I'm not a man. I know I'm new, and there are lots of things that come hard for me; but give me a chance to stay and maybe I'll win out. You don't know, Miss Lee, how much I treasure those stories you told me—when we were coming West on the train, you know. Don't you know, I think you have more of the feeling, more of the fine spirit of the West, than any one I have met. These cowboys seem so barren, some way; they seem to take it as a matter of course. And they all stay away from me—except Brigham. I don't get many stories now."
He paused and Dixie May eyed him curiously. He was not the same man who had traveled with her on the train. A month had made a difference with him. But there was still the boyish innocence that she liked.
"You mean stories about outlaws and Indians?" she said. "Hunting and trapping, and all that?"
"Yes!" nodded Bowles, glancing over at her appealingly. "Where does that old trapper, Bill Jump, live? You know—the one you were telling about!"