"Wal, you didn't need to tell me, but I'm glad you did."
Bostil meant to ask her then if she in any sense returned the rider's love, but unaccountably he could not put the question. The girl was as true as ever—as good as gold. Bostil feared a secret that might hurt him. Just as sure as life was there and death but a step away, some rider, sooner or later, would win this girl's love. Bostil knew that, hated it, feared it. Yet he would never give his girl to a beggarly rider. Such a man as Wetherby ought to win Lucy's hand. And Bostil did not want to know too much at present; he did not want his swift-mounting animosity roused so soon. Still he was curious, and, wanting to get the drift of Lucy's mind, he took to his old habit of teasing.
"Another moonstruck rider!" he said. "Your eyes are sure full moons, Lucy. I'd be ashamed to trifle with these poor fellers."
"Dad!"
"You're a heartless flirt—same as your mother was before she met ME."
"I'm not. And I don't believe mother was, either," replied Lucy. It was easy to strike fire from her.
"Wal, you did dead wrong to ride out there day after day meetin' Slone, because—young woman—if he ever has the nerve to ask me for you I'll beat him up bad."
"Then you'd be a brute!" retorted Lucy.
"Wal, mebbe," returned Bostil, secretly delighted and surprised at Lucy's failure to see through him. But she was looking inward. He wondered what hid there deep in her. "But I can't stand for the nerve of thet."
"He—he means to—to ask you."