"You'll come to my cabin," she said, as if with authority. "I know what's good for all that's happened to you, horse thief."
"Horse thief?" he asked, forgetting for the moment.
"Your forehead!" exclaimed the dark-eyed sister of trouble. "I don't mind. My only husband was one and they strung him up down Missoula way. You come with me."
Childress had no intention of going with the girl, either to her cabin or to any other. Even had he not been a clean-living soul there must have intervened that early-morning meeting with Flame Gallegher.
"It can't be done, sister," he said, offering a smile for her interest.
"But it was my fault—I got you into the mess," she protested.
"And I got out of it with small damage," he returned cheerfully. "You'd better see what you can do for our logger friend. That crack he gave his head when I threw him might well mean more than a headache to-morrow."
"To hell with——"
Having listened to the colloquy, and realizing from the text thereof that the stranger was no ordinary philanderer, Bart Crowe stepped in with all the authority that is rested in the proprietor of an outlaw joint.
"Here you, Delores, take your damn logger to your own cabin," he said harshly. "You've made trouble enough for one afternoon. Mr. Childress is going to be my guest until he decides what he wants to do, who, with and when. Did you get that?" And he called her a name which is too descriptive for the printed page, no matter how much she may have deserved it.