“Yes, I lied to you like a sinner. I might as well admit it. I ought to have told you the truth at first; only I thought you’d yell, and there would be a sweet muss of it in the street, maybe with a lot of fellows chasin’ me and trying to shoot me full of holes. So I lied to you.”
“And my father?”
“I ain’t seen your father for a good while. That was a lie, too. I think he’s well and healthy. I don’t expect to see him again soon.”
“And you intend——”
“Just to keep you here a while, my dear, out of affection for you, pure and simple; and then, as soon as it’s safe, we’ll hike out for a preacher I know about, who’ll marry us. He ain’t in good standing in the church just now, but he can tie the matrimonial knot as tight for us as the next one, and that’s what we want. You see, he got into trouble at the last church he presided over, and, when some of the deacons and leading members wanted to put him in jail, he just jumped the country and came to me; and I’ve treated him better than ever they did, and he’s makin’ more money.”
“He is a member of your band of road agents?” she cried.
“I don’t call ’em that; they’re gentlemen of the road, doing good to the world by taking money from rich folks who don’t need it and handing it over to poor folks that do, with just a little for themselves by way of toll for the trouble. And yet people say hard things against us, and invite us to necktie parties and all that. It’s unjust and unreasonable.”
Ellen West had never before seen the devil displayed in human form as she now saw it in this smiling, handsome fellow, who said these things as coolly as if they were but jest, and sat there, his white teeth showing as he laughed. He looked to be a fiend incarnate.
Realizing just what he was, and all the horror of her own position, she wanted to shriek. Then she began to beg him again to let her go; and he answered in the same way, laughing at her words, and making light of her fears.
“Miss West,” he said, “you’ll find us just the finest lot you ever met. So don’t be afraid and go off into a fit. I’m going to make you my wife. I’ve sworn to have the life of Buffalo Bill. I planned a little trick that I think will get him as soon as he puts his nose into Scarlet Gulch. If it doesn’t, I’ve got some other plans that will. I intend to do him up, for some things I owe him.