"No."
"That was white, anyway. And now I suppose the other woman—this Miss Rich-some-thing-or-other over at the hotel—has come and dug you up and got you on the end of her trail-rope. That's the way it goes when a man mixes and mingles too much. You never can tell—"
"Hold on," Smith interposed. "Whatever else I may be, I'm not that kind of a scoundrel. I don't owe Miss Richlander anything that I can't pay without doing injustice to the woman I love. But in another way I am a scoundrel, Colonel. For the past two days I have been contemptible enough to play upon a woman's vanity merely for the sake of keeping her from talking too much."
The grizzled old ranchman shook his head sorrowfully.
"I didn't think that of you, John; I sure didn't. Why, that's what you might call a low-down, tin-horn sort of a game."
"It is just that, and I know it as well as you do. But it's the price I have to pay for my few days of grace. Miss Richlander knows the Stantons; they've made it their business to get acquainted with her. One word from her to Crawford Stanton, and a wire from him to my home town in the Middle West would settle me."
The older man straightened himself in his chair, and his steel-gray eyes blazed suddenly.
"Break away from 'em, John!" he urged. "Break it off short, and let 'em all do their damnedest! Away along at the first, Williams and I both said you wasn't a crooked crook, and I'm believing it yet. When it comes to the show-down, we'll all fight for you, and they'll have to bring a derrick along if they want to snatch you out of the Timanyoni. You go over yonder to the Hophra House and tell that young woman that the bridle's off, and she can talk all she wants to!"
"No," said Smith shortly. "I know what I am doing, and I shall go on as I have begun. It's the only way. Matters are desperate enough with us now, and if I should drop out——"
The telephone-bell was ringing, and Baldwin twisted his chair to bring himself within reach of the desk set. The message was a brief one and at its finish the ranchman-president was frowning heavily.