“We must git back. Them durned Injuns ’ll make tracks fer Beacon Crossing, or I’m a Dago.”
Then he looked into the cab where the still form of the prairie waif lay shaded by a piece of tarpaulin which Seth had found on the engine. He observed the bandage and the grass bed, and he looked at the figure bending to the task of firing.
“What are you goin’ to do with her?” he asked.
Seth worked on steadily.
“Guess I’ll hand her over to Ma Sampson,” he said, without turning.
“Maybe she has folks. Maybe ther’s the law.”
Seth turned now.
“She’s mine now,” he cried over his shoulder. Then he viciously aimed a shovelful of coal at the open furnace door.
All his years of frontier life had failed to change a naturally tender heart in Seth. Whatever he might do in the heat of swift-rising passion it had no promptings in his real nature. The life of the plains was his in all its varying moods, but there was an unchanging love for his kind under it all. However, like all such men, he hated to be surprised 48 into a betrayal of these innermost feelings, and this is what had happened. Somers had found the vulnerable point in his armor of reserve, but, like the sensible man he was, he kept his own counsel.
At the saloon in Beacon Crossing the men were less careful. Their curiosity found vent in questionable pleasantries, and they chaffed Seth in a rough, friendly way.