"I gotta thank you for—for buttin' in the other day, Miss Ramona."
She laughed, quite at her ease now. Why is it that the most tender-hearted young women like to see big two-fisted men afraid of them?
"Oh, you thought I was buttin' in," she mocked, tilting a gay challenge of the eyes at him.
"I roped the wrong word, miss. I—I thought—"
What he thought was never a matter of record. She had followed him along the fence to complete his discomfiture and to enjoy her power to turn him from an efficient man into a bashful hobbledehoy.
"Father gave me an awful scolding. He said I didn't act like a lady."
"He's 'way off," differed Jack hotly.
She shook her head. "No. You see I couldn't explain to everybody there that I did it for—for Rutherford—because I didn't want anything so dreadful as that poor Mexican's death on his account. Dad said some of the men might think I did it—oh, just to be showing off," she finished untruthfully.
"Nobody would think that—nobody but a plumb idjit. I think you did fine."
Having explained satisfactorily that she had not interfered for his sake, there was really no occasion for Ramona to linger. But Jack had found his tongue at last and the minutes slipped away.