"I—I—reckon you want it back, then?" the Ramblin' Kid said, reaching to his left breast. "You wouldn't want—"
"Did I say I wanted it?" Carolyn June questioned naively.
"And I know," she hurried on, "about you being drugged the day of the race! Why didn't you say you were sick? We—we—thought you were drunk!"
"Nobody asked me," he answered without interest.
"Does everybody have to—to—ask you everything?" she questioned suggestively. "Don't you ever—ever—'ask' anybody anything yourself?"
"What are you tryin' to do?" he said almost brutally, "play with me like you played with them other blamed idiots th' night of th' dance?"
"You're mean—" she started to say.
"Am I?" he interrupted, and spoke with sudden intenseness. "Maybe you think I am. Maybe you think a lot of things. Maybe you think God put them brown eyes in your face just so you could coax men, with a look out of them, to love you an' then laugh because th' damned fools do it!"
"You're unfair!" she replied. "I was just paying the boys back the night of the dance for—for—'framing' up on Ophelia and me the way they did!"
For a moment they looked squarely into each other's eyes. Captain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick nosed each other over the shoulders of their dismounted riders.