“Not at your face. But I knew. You were wearing this blue silk handkerchief.” Her finger indicated the one bound around her ankle.
“So on that evidence you decide I’m a rustler, and you’ve only known me thirteen years. You’re a good friend, ’Lissie.”
Her eyes blazed on him like live coals. “Have you forgotten the calf you left with your brand on it?”
She had startled him at last. “With my brand on it?” he repeated, his voice dangerously low and soft.
“You know as well as I do. You had got the F 45 just about finished when I called. You dropped the running iron and ran.”
“Dropped it and ran, did I? And what did you do?”
“I reheated the iron and blurred the brand so that nobody could tell what it had been.”
He laughed harshly without mirth. “I see. I’m a waddy and a thief, but you’re going to protect me for old times’ sake. That’s the play, is it? I ought to be much obliged to you and promise to reform, I reckon.”
His bitterness stung. She felt a tightening of the throat. “All I ask is that you go away and never come back to me,” she cried with a sob.
“Don’t worry about that. I ain’t likely to come back to a girl that thinks I’m the lowest thing that walks. You’re not through with me a bit more than I am with you,” he answered harshly.