“Two thousand dollars’ reward is a big temptation.”
“Nonsense! If I told—it would be for other reasons. If I were to betray your hiding-place it would be because society demands the punishment of criminals.”
“I’m not a criminal. I never lifted a cent from any man. I didn’t get a dollar from the express company—but I tried—I want you to know, anyway,” he continued, “that I wouldn’t rob an individual—and I wouldn’t have tried this, only I was blind drunk and desperate. I needed cash, and needed it bad.”
“What did you need it for?” asked Alice, with a steady look.
He hesitated, and a flush crept across his brown face. His eyes wavered. “Well, you see, the old home was mortgaged—and mother was sick—”
“Oh, bosh! Tell me the truth,” she demanded. “The papers said you did it for a girl. Why not be honest with me?”
“I will,” he responded, impulsively. “Yes, that’s right. I did it for a girl—and afterward, when I was on the run, what did she do? Threw me down! Told everything she knew—the little coyote—and here I am hunted like a wolf on account of it.” His face settled into savage lines for a moment. But even as he sat thus another light came into his eyes. His gaze took account of Alice’s lips and the delicate rounded whiteness of her neck and chin. Her like he had never met before. The girls he had known giggled; this one smiled. His sweetheart used slang and talked of cattle like a herder, but this woman’s voice, so sweet and flexible, made delightfully strange music to his ears.
Peggy’s return cut short his confidence, and while she was in the cabin he sat in silence, his eyes always on the girl. He seized every opportunity to speak to her, and each time his voice betrayed increasing longing for her favor.
Mrs. Adams, who had conceived a liking for him, ordered him about as freely as though he were a hired guide, and he made himself useful on the slightest hint.
Alice, on her part, was profoundly interested in him, and whenever her foot would permit her to think of anything else, she pitied him. In the madness of his need, his love, he had committed an act which made all the world his enemy, and yet, as she studied his form and expression, her heart filled with regret. He was very attractive in the Western way, with nothing furtive or evasive about him.