The taxi drew up to the cottage, and they got out. Mrs. Liggs led the way along the narrow walk, pausing every few steps to point out to the girl the glories of the garden. As they were about to go in the house, Lex Sangerly’s machine arrived. He came bounding through the gate, shouting out a merry greeting to Mrs. Liggs.
“You should know better than try to sneak away from me, Mother Liggs,” he cried, as he halted before her, wringing her hands and laughing at her bewilderment. “That was a shameless way to treat a fellow—not even tell him you were selling out. I absolutely demand an apology—and a pumpkin pie. I followed you all the way from the seminary.”
“Goodness me, Lex, what in the world—— It was all so sudden, Lex, that I——” she began, with a tremulous pathetic smile. “You’ve got to forgive me. Sometimes things don’t go just right for folks, and they act without thinking. This is Mr. Sangerly, Dot. And you’ve heard me speak of Miss Huntington, Lex.”
“Indeed, yes,” he smiled pleasantly. “Mrs. Liggs has said some very flattering things about you, Miss Huntington. I am always delighted to meet a good friend of hers.”
Here Mrs. Liggs briefly explained to Dot that the Sangerlys had once been neighbors of hers in San José and gave a number of humorous instances to prove Lex’s shocking capacity for pumpkin pie. Laughing, they entered the cottage and, while the visitor waited in the parlor, the women went through the prosaic process of removing their street clothes and donning house dresses. A little later, Mrs. Liggs bustled off for the kitchen—for they must have a cup of her favorite tea, she merrily announced—and Dot joined Lex.
They sat opposite each other and, as they talked, the man admitted to himself that this girl, inhabitant of the desert though she was, surpassed in many respects the young women with whom he was acquainted in such cultured California centers as Pasadena and Burlingame. There was a native refinement about her, a charming grace of movement—little subtle characteristics of elegance—that caused him to marvel and to conclude that she must have inherited them from her mother, since her father certainly lacked them. But what particularly impressed him was the fresh, striking beauty of her, the spirit and frankness and deep strain of sympathy in her face, and that elusive something that marked her at a glance a daughter of the waste lands.
They talked on. Yes, he had heard she was attending Longwell Seminary, and she had been informed that his father was Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad. They both liked Geerusalem. She told him a number of things about herself, chiefly how she loved to read and how greatly she wanted to write stories—gripping stories of adventure. He sat and listened to her and confidentially affirmed to himself that here was a girl who would have fitted into his life as perhaps no other would—not even his petite, brown-eyed fiancée, daughter of the steamship company’s president whose guest he was during his stay in San Francisco.
Doubtless it was this strong appeal which Dot’s personality had for him that made it quite impossible for him to explain his mission to her. He shied at opening the subject, and as for deliberately cross-examining her, he felt that it was out of the question. She was too obviously not the type of girl to have anything to do with an illegal act of any kind; of that he was assured. Rather, he believed, she was the sort who would have reported to Warburton at the time whatever suspicions she might have had regarding Billy Gee’s movements. However, he presently contrived to turn the conversation to the outlaw’s escape and he noted a new interest flash up in her eyes, as he did so. It puzzled him.
“Perhaps, I’m biased, Miss Huntington, because of my association with the M. & S., but nothing would make me happier than to hear that he was lodged in a San Quentin dungeon for life, or shot down by a posse,” he replied slowly, in answer to her questions as to his opinion of the outlaw’s exploits. “Rather brutal, isn’t it?”
“Altogether brutal, Mr. Sangerly,” she said frankly. “But then, I’m also biased. You see, I owe him considerable, in a way, and won’t allow myself to forget it.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “If my father had not captured him and gotten the reward, I wouldn’t be in San Francisco to-day, with the opportunity of an education before me—the chance of seeing something outside of Soapweed Plains and Geerusalem all my life. I am candid in telling you this. It’s true.” Her expression changed. “Sometimes the thought sickens me. It’s like blood money.”