Sally laughed softly. She could laugh in the face of the gloomiest prospects. "Well, to-morrow morning, or the next, or any morning soon, you tie your red scarf on the dead branch of that high mesquite. I'll look every morning with the glass. If I see the scarf, Diane and I will ride out."
"That's fine. Sally, you have ideas in your pretty little head. And once I thought it held nothing but—" She put a hand on my mouth. "I must go now," she said and rose. She stood close to me and put her arms around my neck. "One thing more, Russ. It—it was dif—difficult telling Diane we—we were engaged. I lied to Uncle. But what else could I have told Diane? I—I—Oh—was it—" She faltered.
"Sally, you lied to Sampson to save me. But you must have accepted me before you could have told Diane the truth."
"Oh, Russ, I had—in my heart! But it has been some time since you asked me—and—and—"
"You imagined my offer might have been withdrawn. Well, it stands."
She slipped closer to me then, with that soft sinuousness of a woman, and I believed she might have kissed me had I not held back, toying with my happiness.
"Sally, do you love me?"
"Ever so much. Since the very first."
"I'm a marshal, a Ranger like Steele, a hunter of criminals. It's a hard life. There's spilling of blood. And any time I—I might—All the same, Sally—will you be my wife?"
"Oh, Russ! Yes. But let me tell you when your duty's done here that I will have a word to say about your future. It'll be news to you to learn I'm an orphan. And I'm not a poor one. I own a plantation in Louisiana. I'll make a planter out of you. There!"