"What in hell do you want?"
The boy blazed back at him as fiercely, fumbling the weapon in his pocket.
"I want the whole truth of this miserable thing—the whole truth! And if you have made my sister suffer through anything unworthy, I want your heart's blood as well! Damn you, are you going to speak?" He clutched frantically at Douglass's throat. Very calmly the bronzed giant circled his wrists with a grip of steel and held him off at arms' length.
"Sit down, Carter," he said in a normal tone. "It is your right to know and you shall. I have wronged your sister! No, you fool, not in that way!" as the boy struggled furiously in his vice-like grip. "But I am deserving of any punishment you may choose to inflict." And without preamble he told Carter the whole story, only suppressing the name of the woman concerned.
At its conclusion the boy breathed easier and the truculence went out of him entirely as Douglass laid his head on his arms and muttered hoarsely:
"I love her! I love her! And now I've lost her!"
Bobbie Carter rose and put his hand on the brawny shoulder. His voice was harsh with sympathy, after the fashion of man.
"You've been all kinds of a senseless ass, Ken," he said, affectionately, his faith in his hero once more restored, "but it is not as bad as I thought. You want to break off with Mrs.—" he had almost betrayed his knowledge of that which Douglass had been chivalrously trying to conceal—"with that woman, whoever she is, and in course of time, after she has bawled her foolish little eyes out, Gracie will forgive you. I know her like a book. I'm her brother, you know! Buck up, old man! She'll make it hard for you, and you are going to get a bitter lesson. But it will come out all right in time—If you don't go loco again and spoil it all."
But all his pleading and remonstrances were unavailing with his sister when he sought to effect a reconciliation. She had been irremediably hurt, and, in her misery, actually hoped that she would never see him again. She insisted upon returning home; and then consented to go on to the ranch for a short, and, as she firmly resolved, a final visit!
Douglass, watching her as he thought unseen, the next morning at the Union Depot, as she entered the west-bound train, was filled with a great repentance and remorse. He did not know that she stood at the proper angle to see his disconsolate face until the train pulled out. It must be confessed, however, that it was a hard, unrelenting mouth that scornfully curved as he strode away with depressed head as the train glided out with accelerating speed.