“I’ll not go a step.”
“I reckon you got to go, lady.”
“May I go, too?” My contribution to the conversation came from the knoll just above them.
“My contribution to the conversation came from just above them.”
They whirled as at the press of a button. The man was a huge hulking fellow in corduroys, but he did not look the villain by a long shot. Indeed, his guileless face, lit with amazement at my words, begged to offer a guarantee of honesty. Here certainly was no finished desperado. The first glimpse of him relieved my mind. We were in no personal danger at least.
“Who in time are you?” he wanted to know.
“Tavis Q. Damron, at your service. And you—since introductions are going?”
The young woman—she was a Miss Katherine Gray, stopping at the same hotel as I at Manitou—promptly took the opportunity to slip behind my back. For me, I was in a glow of triumph. It had not been twenty-four hours since Miss Gray had informed me that she meant never to speak again to me. And already the favoring gods had brought her to me on the run. In my relation I felt myself a match for a score of lowering countrymen.
“He shot at me,” she cried over my shoulder.