His eyes were directed toward the ground now. His whole attitude was one of consideration. But this lasted only for a moment. His confident, attractive smile was again on his face when he looked up at her. Before he spoke, she knew that her persuasive effort had been in vain.
"It's mighty good of you to ride over and tell me this," he said, "but I reckon I'll have to stick it out. I've been suspected before—that is, deeds that were not pleasant to consider have been attributed to me, and on stronger circumstantial evidence than the ownership of a gray stallion. However, I have an equity in this land, the first I've ever owned, and I hope I know how to defend my own. I want to stay here, Mrs. Andress; I want to help clear the Fire Weed of rustlers. I had in mind making you folks a call and establishing neighborly relations, but from what you say the effort would be useless. You are welcome here at any time, and so is your uncle. If you need an extra gun, you've only to call for the best action I can get out of mine. Perhaps the day will come when—when we can all be friends."
His manner was at once hesitating and hopeful.
The widow felt a return of her former perplexity regarding the man. Fitzrapp suspected him, and here he was, neatly holed in with the skeleton of a horse band on the edge of their range, and here he said he intended to stay. Appearances certainly were against him and corrective action seemed beyond her power. If he was the rustler chief, his safety lay in Fitzrapp's timidity—his fear to get within target range. She hoped that it would not fall to her lot, suspicion against John Childress verified, to have to bring him down with her own gun. That he'd be very careful not to shoot a woman she felt convinced. That was his handicap and an added reason why he should have accepted warning.
She gathered up the reins and turned her piebald. "Remember that I told you the danger of remaining," she said quietly. "I've miles to ride and must be off."
"Sorry you should consider a warning necessary," he returned. "Life down here in Fire Weed may not be as dull as one might suspect from the stage setting. But I'm grateful for your notice-to-leave, even though I must disregard it. Good-by."
When Ethel Andress gained the top of the bluff, she looked back and saw him engaged in some sort of a rough-and-tumble game with Poison. Evidently as a bugaboo she was a decided failure. Anyway, she had done her best, and they were quits.
As she gave the pony his head for the home ranch, she did not notice a mounted figure that emerged from a thicket farther up the bluff and started on a circular course in the same general direction. The question of honesty set aside, her mind became engaged in a comparison of the two men most in her thoughts. It had been hard to choose the man whose name she wore. This second choice, which now seemed just around the corner, promised to be more difficult. "Why," she asked herself—"why do they put such a weight of weeds on widows?" Then she remembered that report of Fitzrapp's about Childress' meeting with the "Gallegher brat" and felt somewhat cheered. This horse thief suspect wasn't worth any woman's worry.