"I have not hit any man since that day," he said with emphasis. "I can fight—I would fight—quicker for a good woman than anything else."
Cherry McBain held out her hand to him. "I needn't have asked you that," she said. "I didn't know. But promise me that you will come and see my father when you are on your way back—old Gabe has told me you are carrying the mail for the settlement."
King pressed her hand gently.
"I guess I'll come," he said.
A smile brightened the girl's face.
"Come," she said. "We'll have raspberries for tea."
"If it rains wildcats," he declared as he released her hand.
"To-morrow afternoon, then," she said, and the next moment she was gone.
King stood and watched her, hat in hand, until she had vanished from his sight. When the beat of the hoofs on the hard trail was no longer audible he shook his horse's bridle gently and resumed his way.
King did not cease to think of his brother when the last sound of hoof-beats had died in the distance. His conversation with Cherry McBain had started in his mind a train of thought that he could not control.