"For the A T O?" asked the lank, sallow outlaw brutally. "What's ailin' you? Think we're goin' to take you home with the 'Paches between us an' there? We ain't plumb crazy."
"But I must get home right away. My father—he'll be frightened about me."
"Will he?" jeered Gurley. "If he knew you was in such good company he'd be real easy in his mind." The man flashed a look at her that made the girl burn with shame.
"We could go round an' miss the 'Paches," suggested Ramona timidly.
"Forget that notion," answered Gurley, and there was a flash of cruelty in his eyes. "Mebbe you misremember that I'm obligated to you, miss, for what that condemned Ranger Roberts did to me when I fell over the box in front of the store. We'll settle accounts whilst you're here, I reckon."
The girl appealed to Dinsmore. "You're not going to let him ... mistreat me, are you?"
The pathos of her situation, the slim, helpless, wonderful youth of the girl, touched the not very accessible heart of Dinsmore.
"You bet I'm not. He'll cut out that kind o' talk right now," he said.
The eyes of Ramona met his, and she knew she was safe. This man had the respect for a good woman that was characteristic of the turbulent West in its most lawless days. He might be a miscreant and a murderer, but he would fight at the drop of a hat in response to the appeal of any woman who was "straight."
"Playin' up to Clint, are you, Homer?" sneered the other man. "You better take her straight home like she wants, since you're so friendly to the family."