"I do want my hair curled 'n' my mustache waxed 'n' some ody-kolone on my hank-chy," he murmured plaintively. "I shore do!"
Abigail glared at him, but Grace, with a final pat to the pillows, smiled indulgently. "Get well quickly; we need you too much; and it must be dreadful to have to stay indoors in this weather." Then she went out rather abstractedly, McVey's eyes following her with the wistfulness of a dog's. Abbie, watching him, smiled satirically.
"Red, too!" she ejaculated mentally; "well, why not? He's a whole lot of a man, hisself, an cats kin look at queens ef they likes. An' queens hev a lot o' things ter be done fer 'em thet only men kin do. I wonder now—!"
She looked at him speculatively, her lips tightening with a sudden determination. The cowboy grinned with quick prescience.
"Spit it out, Abbie. I caint help myself."
"Red," she said quietly without an attempt at preamble, "will yuh kill Matlock fer me?"
He stared his astonishment undisguisedly. There was absolutely no doubt as to the seriousness of her question; the grim set of her jaws, the anxiety in her eyes and general tenseness of muscle throughout the whole lean body betokened that.
In this man's life surprises were not infrequent and now as ever he displayed only the nonchalance characteristic of all typical frontiersmen in moments of crisis. Something in her manner and attitude repressed the almost irresistible desire to answer her humorously, and his reply was grave to solemnity.
"Yuh see, Miss Abbie, we-all promised Ken thet we wouldn't cut in on thet deal. But I'd jest love to oblige yuh, an' if yuh can square me with the old man I'll take Matlock's trail soon as I can straddle m' hoss agin. Yuh see, Ken's kinder got hes heart sot on doin' thet leetle stunt hisself, an' he's apt to r'ar up an' sweat under thu collar when anybody musses with hes things. Yuh onderstand how 'tis—"
She withered him with a measureless scorn: "Yes, I onderstan'. Yuah afraid o' Matlock!" She turned to go. "An' I thought this was a man!"