“Dares! I thought you knew Bob Halloway better,” she said scornfully. “He dares anything.”
I did know him better. He would stick at nothing. Whatever else his smiling insolence covered, it did not hide any lack of courage to back his recklessness. He was the type of man that women find fascinating, especially women of the high-spirited, chivalrous order. You know the sort of scamp I mean—the kind whose dark, unscrupulous eyes and devil-may-care fearlessness draw the poor moths to the singeing flame. And though for his unworthiness his father two years before had shipped him to a ranch in Colorado and cut him adrift, my resurrected suspicions painted him a rival still to be feared. Katherine had liked him then; she liked him now. I knew it from the moment when the picturesque vagabond galloped up to our hotel two days before and offered her his strong brown hand and candid smile.
I meditated. “Of course it is a holdup of some sort. He isn’t doing it for fun. What does he want?”
Looking up, I happened to catch Katherine Gray’s eyes. They were blushing.
“Oh!” I exclaimed understandingly.
“Nothing of the kind! Don’t be silly, Tavis,” she told me sharply.
“Then I’m hanged if I can understand. I seem to be playing blind euchre with my eyes shut. First one finds Miss Katherine Gray, daughter and sole heir to Simon Gray, the Copper King, scudding over the mountains with Mr. Corduroy’s revolver barking at her.”
“I told you it was accidental,” growled the bass voice. “I couldn’t catch her, so I took out my gun to frighten her into stopping.”
“Then one hears that the Copper King himself is viewing scenery he does not enjoy, under enforced restraint at the hands of a young man who used to lead cotillions with his daughter before he fell into evil ways. You know I told you he was a scamp.”
“Don’t be a parrot, Mr. Damron,” Katherine snapped. “I told you yesterday that I wasn’t interested in your opinion of Mr. Halloway. You so often forget that you are not my chaperon.”