Morgan got up slowly, his head bleeding from contact with the sharp rocks. There was murder in his bloodshot eye, but he knew his master, and after trying vainly to face him down he swung away with an oath.
“I’ll have to apologize for that coyote, Miss Messiter. These fellows need a hint occasionally as to how to behave,” said Bannister.
“Your hints are rather forceful, are they not?”
“I ain’t running a Sunday school,” he admitted.
“So I have gathered. I wonder where he learned to bully women,” she mused aloud.
“Putting it another way, you think there ought to be some one to apologize for his master.”
He was smiling at her without the least rancor, and it came on her with a woman’s swift instinct that safety lay in humoring his volatile moods and diverting him from those that were dangerous.
“Since I’m a prisoner of war I wouldn’t dare think that—not aloud, at least. You might starve me,” she told him, saucily.
“Still, down in your heart y’u think—”
“That there is a great deal of difference between master and man. One is a gentleman in his best moments; the other is always a ruffian.”