"'I've all the right I want,' I answered. 'I'm running Gaspard's Trail, and if you can find a man about the place who won't jump when I want him, you needn't believe me. That makes me a busy woman—see?—so I'll not keep you. Go back to Bonaventure, and don't come worrying the people he belongs to about Rancher Ormesby.'"
I groaned inwardly, and only by an effort concealed my blank consternation. "What did they say next?" I asked.
"Nothing much. The younger one—and I was half sorry I'd spoken straight to her—opened her eyes wide. The elder one she looks at me in a way that made me feel fit to choke her, while Haldane made a little bow. 'I have no doubt he is in capable hands, and we need not trouble you further. No, I don't think you need mention that we called,' says he."
Sally tossed her head with an air of triumph as she concluded, and I lay very still, for it was too late to pray for deliverance from my friends, though of all the rude succession this was about the most cruel blow. What mischievous fiend had prompted the quick-tempered girl to turn upon the Haldanes I could never surmise, but jealousy might have had something to do with it, for Trooper Cotton had once been a favorite of hers. In any case, the result appeared disastrous, for, while I believed her no more than thoughtless, there was no disguising the fact that some of the settlers' less-favored daughters spoke evil of Sally Steel, and I feared their stories had reached Bonaventure.
When five minutes or so had passed she looked at me somewhat shyly. "You're not mad?" she said.
"I could hardly be vexed with you, whatever happened, after all you have done for me. I was only thinking," I made shift to answer. "Still, you might have been a little more civil, Sally."
For a moment or two the girl appeared almost penitent; then she bent her head towards my own, and again the mischief crept into her eyes.
"I'd have brought them in to a banquet, if I had only guessed," she said; and with a thrill of laughter she slipped out of the room. It was with sincere relief I saw her go, for I was in no mood for the somewhat pointed prairie banter, and felt that, in spite of her manifold kindnesses, I could almost have shaken Sally Steel. Then I turned my head from the light, remembering I was not only a ruined man without even power to move, but had left a discordant memory with the friends whose good opinion I most valued, and whom now I might never again meet on the old terms.