His denial weakened a little as he remembered how closely his impulse had led him to it, and how strong, though reasonless, that impulse had been.
The stem of the pipe snapped in Genesee's fingers as he arose, pushing the camp-stool aside with his foot, as if clearing space for action.
"Since you own up that there's someone about here that you—you've taken a fancy to—damn you!—I'm going to tell you right now that you've got to stop that! You're no more fit than I am to speak to her, or ask for a kind word from her, and I give you a pointer that if you try playing fast and loose with her, there'll be a committee of one to straighten out the case, and do it more completely than that man did who was a fool ten years ago. Now, hearken to that—will you?"
And then, without waiting for an answer, he strode out of the shack, slamming the door after him, and leaving his visitor in possession.
"I've got to show him, by staying right in these hills, that I am in earnest," Stuart decided, taking the seat his host had kicked aside, and stretching his feet out to the fire. "No use in arguing or pleading with him—there never was. But give him his own lead, and he will come around to the right point of view, though he may curse me up hill and down dale while he is doing it; a queer, queer fellow—God bless him! And how furious he was about that girl! Those two are a sort of David and Jonathan in their defense of each other, and yet never exchange words if they can help it—that's queer, too—it would be hard telling which of them is the more so. Little need to warn any man away from her, however; she is capable of taking very good care of herself."
There was certainly more than one woman at the ranch; but to hear the speech of those two men, one would have doubted it; for neither had thought it necessary even to mention her name.
CHAPTER X.
THE TELLING OF A STORY.
"But you promised! Yes, you did, Mr. Stuart—didn't he, Mrs. Hardy? There, that settles it; so you see this is your evening to tell a story."