The man doffed his hat with elaborate politeness. “Right glad to meet up with you again, Miss Ferne. You was in short dresses when I saw you last. My, but you’ve grown pretty. Was it because you heard I was in Arizona that you came here?”
She rose, rejecting in every line of her erect figure his impudent geniality, his insolent pretense of friendliness.
“My brother is in the hotel. If he learns you are here there will be trouble.”
A wicked malice lay in his smiling eyes. “Trouble for him or for me?” he inquired silkily. 185
His lash flicked her on the raw. Hal Yarnell was a boy of nineteen. This man had a long record as a gunfighter to prove him a desperate man. Moreover, he knew how hopelessly heart sick she was of the feud that for many years had taken its toll of blood.
“Haven’t you done us enough harm, you and yours? Go away. Leave us alone. That’s all I ask of you.”
He came in and closed the door. “But you see it ain’t all I ask of you, Ferne Yarnell. I always did ask all I could get of a girl as pretty as you.”
“Will you leave me, sir?”
“When I’m through.”
“Now.”