“Why, Flo—he only said, ‘Hello, pretty eyes,’ and I let it pass!” said Carley, lamely.
“You never want to let anything pass, out West. Because next time you’ll get worse. This turn your other cheek doesn’t go in Arizona. But we shore thought Ruff said worse than that. Though from him that’s aplenty.”
“How did you know?”
“Well, Charley told it. He was standing out here by the door last night an’ he heard Ruff speak to you. Charley thinks a heap of you an’ I reckon he hates Ruff. Besides, Charley stretches things. He shore riled Glenn, an’ I want to say, my dear, you missed the best thing that’s happened since you got here.”
“Hurry—tell me,” begged Carley, feeling the blood come to her face.
“I rode over to Ryan’s place for dad, an’ when I got there I knew nothing about what Ruff said to you,” began Flo, and she took hold of Carley’s hand. “Neither did dad. You see, Glenn hadn’t got there yet. Well, just as the men had finished dipping a bunch of sheep Glenn came riding down, lickety cut.”
“‘Now what the hell’s wrong with Glenn?’ said dad, getting up from where we sat.
“Shore I knew Glenn was mad, though I never before saw him that way. He looked sort of grim an’ black.... Well, he rode right down on us an’ piled off. Dad yelled at him an’ so did I. But Glenn made for the sheep pen. You know where we watched Haze Ruff an’ Lorenzo slinging the sheep into the dip. Ruff was just about to climb out over the fence when Glenn leaped up on it.”
“‘Say, Ruff,’ he said, sort of hard, ‘Charley an’ Ben tell me they heard you speak disrespectfully to Miss Burch last night.’”
“Dad an’ I ran to the fence, but before we could catch hold of Glenn he’d jumped down into the pen.”