“What was it?” she inquired.
“Why, it seems she compromised herself pretty badly with this fellow Glenister coming up on the steamer last spring. Mighty brazen, according to my wife. Mrs. Champian was on the same ship and says she was horribly shocked.”
Ah! Glenister had told her only half the tale, thought the girl. The truth was baring itself. At that moment Champian thought she looked the typical creature of the dance-halls, the crafty, jealous, malevolent adventuress.
“And the hussy masquerades as a lady,” she sneered.
“She is a lady,” said the Kid. He sat bolt upright and rigid, and the knuckles of his clinched hands were very white. In the shadow they did not note that his dark face was ghastly, nor did he say more except to bid Champian good-bye when he left, later on. After the door had closed, however, the Kid arose and stretched his muscles, not languidly, but as though to take out the cramp of long tension. He wet his lips, and his mouth was so dry that the sound caused the girl to look up.
“What are you grinning at?” Then, as the light struck his face, she started. “My! How you look! What ails you? Are you sick?” No one, from Dawson down, had seen the Bronco Kid as he looked to-night.
“No. I’m not sick,” he answered, in a cracked voice.
Then the girl laughed harshly.
“Do you love that girl, too? Why, she’s got every man in town crazy.”
She wrung her hands, which is a bad sign in a capable person, and as Glenister crossed the floor below in her sight she said, “Ah-h—I could kill him for that!”