Her father passed a bony hand slowly across his unshaven chin. “That’s right, honey. If you done him a meanness, you had ought to say so.”
“She has said so very handsomely, Mr. Lee,” spoke up Morse.
“I’ve been warning him, dad, that he ought to be more careful how he rides around alone, with the cattlemen feeling the way they do.”
“It’s a fact they feel right hot under the collar. You’re ce’tainly a temptation to them, Mr. Morse,” the girl’s father agreed.
The mine owner shifted the subject of conversation. He was not a man of many impulses, but he yielded to one now.
“Can’t we straighten out this trouble between us, Mr. Lee? You think I’ve done you an injury. Perhaps I have. If we both mean what’s right, we can get together and fix it up in a few minutes.”
The old Southerner stiffened and met him with an eye of jade. “I ain’t asking any favors of you, Mr. Morse. We’ll settle this matter some day, and settle it right. But you can’t buy me off. I’ll not take a bean from you.”
The miner’s eyes hardened. “I’m not trying to buy you off. I made a fair offer of peace. Since you have rejected it, there is nothing more to be 116 said.” With that he bowed stiffly and walked away, leading his horse.
Lee’s gaze followed him and slowly the eyes under the beetled brows softened.
“Mebbe I done wrong, honey. Mebbe I’d ought to have given in. I’m too proud to compromise when he’s got me beat. That’s what’s ailin’ with me. But I reckon I’d better have knuckled under.”