Broderick's ready laugh, slow, easy, vaguely insolent, rose clearly to
Winifred's ears.
"You're sure a hospitable cuss," he retorted. "Don't be a hog on top of it, Henry. I want to see that pretty niece of yours."
The girl's cheeks went red at the light tone. She waited to hear her uncle's short rejoinder. And she heard nothing beyond the sheriff's rasping chuckle.
When Mrs. Riddell called from the foot of the stairs that supper was ready Winifred had fully made up her mind that she would not go down. She heard the three men chatting lightly and decided that she would get something to eat after they had finished and gone. But as though her uncle had caught her thought he too came to the foot of the stairs, calling to her.
"Winifred," he was saying, "supper's ready. Sheriff Dalton is here, and Mr. Broderick, a friend of mine. I want you to tell them what you have told me."
She hesitated a moment, biting her lip. Then she answered, "All right, Uncle Henry; I'll be right down." She went to her wash-stand, arranged her hair swiftly, saw that the flush had gone out of her cheeks, that her eyes were cool and told nothing, and went down to join the three men who had already taken their places at the dinner table.
As she came through the door, her head up, her lips a little hard, Broderick was the first to see her and was upon his feet in a flash, as graceful as a cavalier, as debonair in his big boots and soft white silk shirt as though he had been a courtly gentleman dressed for the ball, his eyes frankly filled with the appreciation of her dainty beauty. Pollard, remembering, rose too, and last of all Cole Dalton, his shrewd eyes intense and keen upon her. Winifred's gaze passed by Broderick as though she had not seen him and travelled to her uncle while she waited for the introductions.
Dalton, who was first to be presented, put out a big, hard, square hand, capturing and releasing Winifred's suddenly as though it were a part of the day's work to be done and over with. He had stepped forward and now stepped back to his chair, his keen, watchful eyes never leaving her face.
Then Broderick took the hand which she did not like to refuse to her uncle's friend and guest and yet which she disliked giving him, saw the little flush which his gaze drove into her cheeks, and with a hint of laughter in his eyes bowed over it gallantly, murmuring his happiness in knowing her. And it was Broderick who stepped quickly to her chair, drawing it out for her to be seated. She found herself wondering where this man had learned to do these little things which are no part of the training of the far out cattle men.
During the first half of the meal there was no reference to the happening at Harte's Camp. Broderick, with a mood contagiously care free and sparkling, did the greater part of the talking, and though he elicited from the girl rare words beyond a brief "yes" or "no," he seemed content. And he interested her. He talked well, with little slurs of grammar that seemed rather due to the man's carelessness of nature than to ignorance, his vocabularly not without picturesque force. It seemed natural that he should do the talking, that he should address himself largely to her, and that Pollard and Cole Dalton should listen and watch him.