“He says he came into town by that path,” the young man rejoined. “He put us on to the track of you girls. He said he saw you start down the path ahead of him.”
“He is alive!” murmured Nell.
“His horse was in bad shape, I believe,” Hunt told her. “But the last I knew—just before we left the Grub Stake to look for you—Dick Beckworth gave every promise of getting on quite well.”
“Dick the Devil!” muttered Nell. “That sure is his name.”
“From what I have heard about him,” said Hunt, “I think his nickname quite fits him. But it was probably Tolley’s meanness alone that made you—that is,” he hastened to correct himself, “that made all of the trouble. That was thrashed out last evening, Miss Nell. Steve Siebert and Andy McCann proved Dick was not dead, although he did go over the cliff back there in the spring.”
“I don’t know what you are both talking about,” Betty interposed. “Who is this—this—Dick Beckworth, do you call him?”
“A gambler, Betty,” said her brother. “You would scarcely know such a person. But unfortunately both Miss Nell and I have been obliged to mix with all classes of society,” he smiled again, “and so we know such people.”
“Nell should not sing in those places.” Betty said it with conviction. But in a moment she turned again to the identity of the man whose reappearance had startled Nell Blossom so greatly that she had fainted in the storm. “What—what does this man, Dick, look like?”
“Not an unhandsome fellow,” said the parson generously. “A somewhat cruel face—ruthless perhaps would be the better term. Good features; a beautiful complexion—if such a term should be applied to a man’s skin,” and he laughed.
“You do not like him, Ford!” exclaimed Betty quickly.