From Sheriff Matson Ruth secured a permit to see Falkner.
The cow-puncher was brought, hand-cuffed, into the office of the jailer. It was an effect of his sudden, furious temper that his guards never took any chances with him. None of the friendly little privileges that fell to the other prisoners came his way.
“Mrs. McCoy wants to talk with you, Hal,” explained Ackerman, the jailer. “Don’t make any mistake about this. I’ll be in the outer room there with a gat. I’ve got a guard under the window. This is no time to try for a get-away.”
Falkner looked at him with an ugly sneer. “Glad you mentioned it, Steve. I’ll postpone any notions I may have in that line, but, take it from me, they are merely postponed. When the time comes I’m going.”
Ackerman shrugged his shoulders and left the room. He thought it altogether likely that some day Falkner would have the top of his head blown off, but he did not want to have to do the job.
“I’ve come to ask a favour of you, Mr. Falkner,” Ruth blurted out.
Her courage was beginning to ebb. The man looked so formidable now that she was alone with him. His reputation, she knew, was bad. More than once, when she had met him on horseback in the hills, the look in his burning black eyes had sent little shivers through her.
“A favour of me, Mrs. McCoy! Ain’t that a come-down? Didn’t know you knew I was on the map. You’re sure honouring me,” he jeered.
It was his habit to take note in his sullen fashion of all good-looking women. When he had seen her about the ranch or riding with her husband or Larry Silcott he had resented it that this slender, vivid girl who moved with such quick animal grace, whose parted lips and shining eyes were so charmingly eager, had taken him in apparently only as a detail of the scenery.
Now his dark eyes, set deep in the sockets, narrowed suspiciously. What did she want of him? What possible favour was there that he could give her?