“And get court martialed when you get there. Boots and saddles for you, Lieutenant Samuel Adams King!”
“Yes, sir!” he cried, clicking his heels together and saluting. Then he seized her hand and kissed it.
“Don’t!” she whispered, snatching it away. “Here comes Luke.”
“I don’t care if the World’s coming.”
“That’s because you don’t know what it is to be joshed by a bunch of cow-punchers,” she told him. “Say, why when it comes to torture, Victorio and Geronimo and old Whoa could have gone to school to some of these red necks from the Pan Handle.”
“All right, I won’t embarrass you. Good-bye and good luck, and don’t forget the message I brought from Mrs. Cullis. She wants you to come and spend a week or so with her.”
“Tell her I thank her heaps and that I’ll come the first chance I get. Good-bye!”
She watched him walk away, tall, erect, soldierly; trim in his blue blouse, his yellow striped breeches, his cavalry boots, and campaign hat—a soldier, every inch of him and, though still a boy, a veteran already.
And she sighed—sighed because she did not love him, sighed because she was afraid that she would never love him. Lines of bitterness touched the corners of her mouth and her eyes as she thought of the beautiful and priceless thing that she had thrown away—wasted upon a murdering savage—and a flush of shame tinged her cheeks.
Her painful reveries were interrupted by the voice of Luke Jensen.