"Don't be silly!" she broke in suddenly. "I only half believed that."
"Don't you think that's bad enough?" replied King.
"Can you fight?" asked the girl abruptly, disregarding his reply.
The smile that had rested upon King's face during the conversation vanished all at once before the old grave look that was habitual with him. He did not answer at once—he turned the question over and over again in his mind.
"Cherry McBain," he said at last, "I'm not used to women—and women's ways." His eyes were looking off across the valley when he spoke, and his voice was like that of a man speaking to himself. "I've known some women—a few—but no woman ever asked me if I could fight—only once—but she was a foolish woman—she wasn't good. No good woman ever asked me that before."
He turned his face towards her slowly and looked at her with searching eyes.
"But you," he said hesitatingly, "you're good, Cherry McBain."
He was silent as he looked at her now, and his lips tightened before he spoke again. "Years ago," he said at last, "I fought, and the man I struck—we were boys then—was a brother. I was not myself—I struck him in anger. When I understood what I had done I left him—left my home and all—and came west. That was ten years ago. I wrote him a letter and he asked me to come back. He said he had forgotten—but I—I could never go back."
"Do you think that's silly too?"
She shook her head.