“You have the floor, ma'am. What does this gun-play business mean?”
Through the tears her angry eyes flashed starlike.
“I sha'n't tell you,” she flamed. “You had no right to—How dared you insult me as you have?”
“Did I insult you?” he asked, with suave gentleness. “Then if you feel insulted I expect you lay claim to being a lady. But I reckon that don't fit in with holding up strangers at the end of a gun. If I've insulted you I'll ce'tainly apologize, but you'll have to show me I have. We're in Texas, which is next door but one to Missouri, ma'am.”
“I don't want your apologies. I detest and hate you,” she cried,
“That's your privilege, ma'am, and it's mine to know whyfor I'm held up with a gun when I'm traveling peaceably along the road,” he answered evenly.
“I'll not tell you.”
He spoke softly as if to himself. “That's too bad. I kinder hate to take her to jail, but I reckon I must.”
She shrank back, aghast and white.
“No, no! You don't understand. I didn't mean to—I only wanted—Why, I meant to pay you for the team.”