“He’s a type,” he said, without real interest.
“What d’you mean?”
The man bestirred himself.
“Oh, he’s a cattleman, bred and raised in the toughest school of a trade that flourished when he was a youngster. Look at the guns he carries. Never moves about without ’em. They’re prehistoric, but, I’d guess, in his hands mighty effective. It’s always so with his kind. But Larry used the wrong word. It should have been ‘kill,’ not ‘murder.’ Lightning couldn’t murder. But he’d kill like a real gentleman.”
Blanche felt her superiority over these men in her understanding of Lightning.
“You’re both wrong by miles,” she said. “You’re judging him, like Larry did, by the outside show. Men are mostly like that. You don’t know the Lightning I know. You don’t know the kindness, the affection and loyalty of the man towards little Molly. And I couldn’t begin to tell you about it. Why, even with her lying here sick, his queer practical mind was worrying for her future. He was crazy to get back to the farm to see to her interests, her stock, and the harvest. No. Lightning’s a swell bluff as a ‘bad man.’ Why, he was scared to face the tunnel on his own horse, because the beast was as scared as he was. I had to lend him my Pedro to get him home.”
Jim was looking up. His preoccupation had gone. He was grinning ironically at the confident woman.
“Lightning borrowed your Pedro to make that trip home?” he asked incredulously. “It’s a—joke, Sis. It’s——”
He broke off. And his irony fell from him, leaving a sudden frown on his even brows.
“Why is it a joke?” Blanche had become aware of the man’s change of expression. “What—what are you—guessing?” she asked.