"Gordon!" Helen laughed good-naturedly, facing him as she walked. "What in the world has been the matter with you to-day? We usually get on so well together, and to-day, if I do say it, only my unwillingness to quarrel has kept us from it."
"Oh, no!" He smiled, too. "Maybe that New York and London business rubbed me the wrong way; that's all. I have plenty of faults, but I'm loyal to my friends. I don't like even hints that they aren't the best friends a man could have."
"Surely, I haven't...."
"Maybe not. Maybe I imagined it. But Crawling Water is a lot more real than London, to my way of thinking."
"You haven't been to London."
"I'm not likely to go, either," he retorted.
Her red lips curled in a way that seemed to indicate that she thought he would go. Already, she was planning to get him out of Crawling Water and beyond the influence of Dorothy Purnell.
As they turned into the main street again, a man leaving a group near the livery stable, and mounting a horse, rode toward them.
"I wonder what's up now?" Wade muttered, recognizing the horseman as one of the Trowbridge outfit.
"Mr. Wade. Just a minute." With the grace of a Centaur, the rider swung his mount in beside them and doffed his hat. "Two of Jensen's herders have been shot. I thought you ought to know about it."