"Don't you tell me another single lie! Where did you get them?"
"Well ... I had 'em made,"—swallowing again, and very weakly.
"Two-Bits!"—seizing his rough, cold hand while a suggestion of tears came into her eyes. "You had these made for me? Why, bless your heart, I've never had a finer gift before. And to think—
"You're a dear!"
"Oh, my gosh!" he whimpered, and despite her detaining hand, fled the disquieting presence.
Of all men in that country, Two-Bits was the only one who openly accepted Jane Hunter and his devotion was caused by an awed appreciation of her beauty. The others, even her own riders, remained stolidly skeptical of her ability to measure up to the task she had undertaken and when men talked of the business of the country they unconsciously spoke of the prestige of the HC as a thing of the past.
Hepburn had brought back some of her property that was being driven off but he had not halted attempts to make away with her horses and cattle. There were rumors, vague but persistent, of other depredations and those who best knew the ways of the cattle country awaited that time when the situation must reach a crisis, when Jane Hunter must be put to the ordeal that would test her mettle.
She was yet unconscious of much of this for her urge to make a place for herself centered on penetrating the callousness of the one man she wanted to impress most of all. He remained aloof, watching her either with that tantalizing amusement or a subtle challenge to win his open friendship. There were moments when, as on that night after their drive to Ute Crossing, she wanted to throw herself on him, to beg, to plead that he lower his reserve and give her a place ... a place in his heart.
But that, reason told her, would be the last thing to win him. She must trust to the force of her personality to drive her way into his life....
Occasionally he would talk, for she offered a sympathetic audience to the things he had to say but never did their conversation become intimate; the subjects he discussed were invariably abstract and impersonal. While listening she studied the man, striving to define that quality about him which lay behind his reserve and drew her on. She could not seize and analyze it.... He was, aside from obvious minor qualities, a closed book.