His strange speech checked the mounting cowboy. Stewart stepped down from the stirrup. Then their hard faces were still and cold while their eyes locked glances.
Madeline was as much startled by Nels’s speech as Stewart. Quick to note a change in these men, she now sensed one that was unfathomable.
“Resign?” questioned Stewart.
“Shore. What ’d you think I’d do under circumstances sich as has come up?”
“But see here, Nels, I won’t stand for it.”
“You’re not my boss no more, an’ I ain’t beholdin’ to Miss Hammond, neither. I’m my own boss, an’ I’ll do as I please. Sabe, senor?”
Nels’s words were at variance with the meaning in his face.
“Gene, you sent me on a little scout down in the mountains, didn’t you?” he continued.
“Yes, I did,” replied Stewart, with a new sharpness in his voice.
“Wal, shore you was so good an’ right in your figgerin’, as opposed to mine, that I’m sick with admirin’ of you. If you hedn’t sent me—wal, I’m reckonin’ somethin’ might hev happened. As it is we’re shore up against a hell of a proposition!”