“Oh, well, beggars can’t be choosers,” she cried impatiently. “I don’t suppose you have a better way to suggest.”
“Only in one particular, Vicky. No need of you going. There might be shooting. I don’t say there will, but there might be.”
“Fiddlesticks! There won’t be, not if I’m there. Think I don’t know Ralph Dodson?”
Budd came unexpectedly to her aid. “Miss Lowell’s sure right, Hugh. You know if she’s with us there won’t be no gun-play.”
Hugh hesitated. What his friends said was true enough. The West, even at its worst, was very careful of its good women. No weapons would be used in the presence of Victoria Lowell. But there was in him an extreme reluctance to use her skirts as a protection behind which to hide. He wanted to play his own hand and take Dutch out openly in the face of opposition.
Yet he knew this was not possible. Vicky had worked out a feasible plan of operations. It was only fair to give it a tryout.
“All right,” he conceded rather ungraciously. “Have it yore own way, good people. Vicky, you’re road boss of this outfit. Go to it. When do we start, did you say?”
Vicky dimpled with delight. “Right after supper.”