“But I wired him.”
“Like as not the message is over in his box at the P.O. He’ll be in town to-morrow. He’s shipping cattle for Stillwell.”
“Meanwhile I must go to a hotel. Will you please—”
If he heard her last words he showed no evidence of it. A noise outside had attracted his attention. Madeline listened. Low voices of men, the softer liquid tones of a woman, drifted in through the open door. They spoke in Spanish, and the voices grew louder. Evidently the speakers were approaching the station. Footsteps crunching on gravel attested to this, and quicker steps, coming with deep tones of men in anger, told of a quarrel. Then the woman’s voice, hurried and broken, rising higher, was eloquent of vain appeal.
The cowboy’s demeanor startled Madeline into anticipation of something dreadful. She was not deceived. From outside came the sound of a scuffle—a muffled shot, a groan, the thud of a falling body, a woman’s low cry, and footsteps padding away in rapid retreat.
Madeline Hammond leaned weakly back in her seat, cold and sick, and for a moment her ears throbbed to the tramp of the dancers across the way and the rhythm of the cheap music. Then into the open door-place flashed a girl’s tragic face, lighted by dark eyes and framed by dusky hair. The girl reached a slim brown hand round the side of the door and held on as if to support herself. A long black scarf accentuated her gaudy attire.
“Senor—Gene!” she exclaimed; and breathless glad recognition made a sudden break in her terror.
“Bonita!” The cowboy leaped to her. “Girl! Are you hurt?”
“No, Senor.”
He took hold of her. “I heard—somebody got shot. Was it Danny?”