“Stranger, after you!” he said, as he proffered the bottle to Mainwaring.
“Thank you—I don’t drink,” said the young rancher.
“Don’t drink whisky?” cried Harkness, in surprise. “Don’t drink whisky and come from Texas? Why, I thought ’twas nat’ral born for a Texan to drink? And you told me you was one!”
“I’m proud to be an exception, so don’t wait for me,” said Mainwaring.
“Well, I’m beat!” said Harkness, as he raised the bottle and took a pull that was ample for both, had Mainwaring been a drinker.
“Hark! What was that?” said the robber. “I heard something clash.”
“I saw a horse kicking out over there,” said Mainwaring, whose heart throbbed wildly now, for he had recognized the clatter of a saber against the rocks.
The robber appeared to be satisfied, and he called out to Lize to get him a bite to eat to keep that “forty-rod” whisky from going to his head.
The woman cut him off a huge slice of venison from a roasted haunch and was in the act of handing it to him when her eyes, looking back into the gloom, flashed like those of an angered tigress, and she screamed:
“Bill, ye’re betrayed! Look—the soldiers!”