“My father?”
“He’ll have to raise thirty thousand dollars to redeem his daughter.” He let his bold eyes show their admiration. “And she’s worth every cent of it.”
“Do you mean—” She read the flash of triumph in his ribald eyes and broke off. There was no need to ask him what he meant.
“That’s what I mean exactly, ma’am. You’re welcome to the hospitality of Hidden Valley. What’s ours is yours. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, but I reckon you’re not welcome to go whenever you want to—not till we get that thirty thousand.”
“You talk as if he were a millionaire,” she told him scornfully.
“The major’s got friends that are. If it’s a showdown he’ll dig the dough up. I ain’t a bit worried about that. His brother, Webb, will come through.”
“Why should he?” She stood as straight and unbending as a young pine, courage regnant in the very poise of the fine head. “You daren’t harm a hair of my head, and he knows it. For your life, you daren’t.”
His eyes glittered. Wolf Leroy was never a safe man to fling a challenge at. “Don’t you be too sure of that, my dear. There ain’t one thing on this green earth I daren’t do if I set my mind to it. And your friends know it.”
The other man broke in, easy and unmoved. “Hold yore hawses, cap. We got no call to be threatening this young lady. We keep her for a ransom because that’s business. But she’s as safe here as she would be at the Rocking Chair. She’s got York Neil’s word for that.”
The Wolf snarled. “The word of a miscreant. That’ll comfort her a heap. And York Neil’s word don’t always go up here.”