But Slosson was in no mood to be denied just now. Although his anger had abated, he felt that Hazel was not to go free of penalty. He came to her as though about to take the reins from her hand, but, instead, he thrust out an arm to seize her by the waist.
Then it was that a curious thing happened. The young horse suddenly jumped backwards, dragging the girl with it out of the man's reach. It had responded to the swift flick of Hazel's quirt, and left the man without understanding, and his amorous intentions quite unsatisfied. The next moment the girl was in her own saddle and laughing down at him.
"I forgot," she cried, "you'd just hate to have your horse held by a—girl. You best hurry into the saddle, or you'll contract lung trouble in all that wet."
Slosson cursed softly. But he knew that she was beyond his reach in the saddle. A tacit admission that, at least here, on the ranch, she dominated the situation.
"And I've never been able to show you those beeves, and convince you about ranching," Hazel sighed regretfully later on, as they rode back towards the ranch. But her sigh was sham and her heart was full of laughter.
She was thinking of the delight she would witness in Gordon's eyes, when he beheld the much besmirched suit of this man, to whom he had taken such a dislike.
CHAPTER XII
THINKING HARD
The days slipped by with great rapidity. They passed far too rapidly for Gordon. The expectation of Silas Mallinsbee that David Slosson would eventually listen to reason, and accept terms for himself similar to those agreeable to him on behalf of the railroad, showed no sign of maturing. The firmness of his front in no way seemed to affect the grafting agent, and from day to day, although the rancher and his assistant waited patiently for a definite dénouement, nothing occurred to hold out promise one way or another. Mallinsbee said very little, but he watched events with wide-open eyes, and not altogether without hope that the man would be brought to reason. His eyes were on Hazel, smiling appreciation, for Hazel was at work using every art of which she was capable to frustrate any opposition to her father's plans, and to help on, as she described it, the "good work."