"I'll get it for you," he urged. "It isn't safe for a girl like you to go about alone after nightfall in a place like this."
The girl's eyes sought his wonderingly in the darkness.
"Me?" she ejaculated. "Stranger, I came to this town when it was nothing but four shacks and a gusher, and I know everyone in it, white, yellow and Mex. Not safe? Why every dog knows Gentleman Geoff's Billie!"
"You?" he stammered.
"That's me. My Dad is Gentleman Geoff," she explained proudly. "He owns the Blue Chip, and it's the squarest gambling-house from Chihuahua to Campeche. It's kind of you to offer to go with me, but I don't need any protection. I sort of belong to Limasito, I reckon. Adios!"
CHAPTER II
A SUPERFLUOUS KNIGHT-ERRANT
Kearn Thode rode back to his hotel with his brain in a whirl. That girl with the sweet, steady eyes and naïve, fearless manner, the product of a gambling-house and associate of its habitués? The thought filled him with repugnance akin to horror. He was in no sense a prig, but although this was his first venture below the Rio Grande, he had spent three years in the roughest corners of the West and he knew the type of women who infested the dance-halls and gambling-joints; unclean camp-followers of the army of Chance.
How had she grown to budding womanhood without contamination in such an atmosphere? Self-reliant she had shown herself to be, but tender in her pitying care of the injured boy and innocently free from coquetry or cynical suspicion in her frank acceptance of the stranger. There had been open amusement in her tone at his suggestion of danger to her from any in Limasito, and genuine love and pride when she spoke of her father and his calling. How was it possible that the mire of her surroundings had left her untouched?