"I'd have done the same. Wal, now, when you git back home what's comin' of it all?"
Lucy shook her head sorrowfully. "God only knows. Dad will never own Wildfire, and he'll never let me marry Slone. And when you take the King away from him to ransom me—then my life will be hell, for if Dad sacrifices Sage King, afterward he'll hate me as the cause of his loss."
"I can sure see the sense of all that," replied Creech, soberly. And he pondered.
Lucy saw through this man as if he had been an inch of crystal water. He was no villain, and just now in his simplicity, in his plodding thought of sympathy for her he was lovable.
"It's one hell of a muss, if you'll excuse my talk," said Creech. "An' I don't like the looks of what I 'pear to be throwin' in your way.... But see hyar, Lucy, if Bostil didn't give up—or, say, he gits the King back, thet wouldn't make your chance with Slone any brighter."
"I don't know."
"Thet race will have to be ran!"
"What good will that do?" cried Lucy, with tears in her eyes. "I don't want to lose Dad. I—I—love him—mean as he is. And it'll kill me to lose Lin. Because Wildfire can beat Sage King, and that means Dad will be forever against him."
"Couldn't this wild-horse feller LET the King win thet race?"
"Oh, he could, but he wouldn't."