ejaculated Tanner, and laying the hat on the table he flattened the crown, and put a silver dollar over the three holes. It hid them.
“If thet’d been at a hundred steps, I’d say tip-top.”
“Cap, I couldn’t hit a barn door with the rifle,” replied Rich, grinning. “I shot at rocks an’ things all aboot, but either I’m no good or the Winchester shoots high. I reckon it does. I put those holes in my hat with the Colt.—First three shots! Just throwed the gun—you know—an’ I was thinkin’ aboot Lee Tate.”
“Rich!—What kind of talk is thet?” rejoined Tanner, with reproof. “Reckon your shootin’ was wonderful, but your talk is crazy.”
“Shore it is, Cap. But don’t mind. I just was in fun. He’s been a lot on my mind lately.”
“Ahuh! Wal, forget him, an’ all the rest of the Tates. . . . Throw a stick on the fire and set down.”
Rich laid aside the rifle and replenished the fire, after which he settled himself in his favorite seat.
“I had a fight with Nesta this mawnin’,” he announced.
“Fight! What you talkin’ about, boy?”
“Twice I caught her slippin’ out. She wanted to get to you first.”
“Wal, I reckon I’m between the devil an’ the deep sea,” returned Tanner, ruefully.
“Meanin’ me as the devil, an’ Nesta as the deep sea!—It’s shore aboot right. I’m gettin’ mean an’ Nesta is deep. But she wouldn’t lie to me. I know that. . . . My Gawd, Cap—how I love her!—We Ameses are a queer outfit. Reckon it’s because so many of us are twins. My father had a twin brother. An’ there were twins among his people before. But never brother an’ sister. Nesta an’ I are the first. . . . If anythin’ bad happened to her it’d be like cuttin’ part of me out. . . . Nature plays some tricks, Cap. An’ she shore hasn’t any respect for anybody. There was a family over heah named Hines. They had twins—an’ they were fastened to each other in a way that if they’d lived would have been shore horrible. We had a cow once that gave birth to two calves fastened together. We had to kill them. I reckon it doesn’t make no difference to nature whether it’s cattle or people. Anyway, Nesta an’ I are awful close together. It scares hell out of me lately. I feel so much the way she feels that it’s hard to be myself.”
“Ahuh.—Wal, Rich, what’s on your mind?” returned Tanner, straddling a bench.
“There’s shore a lot. But Nesta first an’ most. . . . Cap, it was darn good of you to fetch us all those presents. Only if you had to give all that pretty stuff to Nesta I wish you’d waited. Till Christmas, anyway.”
“Why so, lad?”
“Nesta’s been strange this summer an’ fall. Now she’ll be plumb out of her haid.”
“Rich, are you afraid the pretty clothes will hurry her into marryin’?”
“Lord! I wish they would!” ejaculated Ames. “Cap, the truth’ll sound sort of silly, I reckon. But I cain’t help my feelin’s. . . . Lil Snell is goin’ to be married this month at Shelby. Hall Barnes is the fellow. I reckon you don’t know him. I do—a little, an’ I’m not crazy aboot him. Nesta went to school with him. You know father sent Nesta back to Texas before an’ through the cattle war heah. Well, she knows Hall an’ says he’s not such a bad sort. Maybe it’s true. But he’s related to the Tates, an’ he’s thick with Lee. . . . Well, Nesta wasn’t goin’ to this weddin’ because she hadn’t no dress. An’ I was plumb glad. Now you’ve gone an’ fetched her one!—Cap, last night after you left she came runnin’ in on us, dressed all in white. My Gawd! You should have seen her! Well, she raved aboot goin’ to the weddin’. An’ mother raved with her.”
“Wal, lad, there’s nothin’ hardly worrisome in thet,” rejoined the trapper. “I think it’s fine. An’ I’m goin’ to show up in Shelby, jest to see Nesta in thet white outfit.”
“Cap, Nesta has got you the same way she’s got Sam,” expostulated Rich.
“Humph! An’ how’s thet?”
“Plumb out of your haid.”
“Haw! Haw! Is thet why she wanted so much to see me before you?”
“Shore, so far as I know. But Nesta has got me guessin’.—Now, listen, old timer, an’ bear in mind I wouldn’t lie to you. . . . When Sam Playford came heah last April he fell in love with Nesta just like that. Head over heels! An’ Nesta fell in love with him. She told me. Up till lately she never had any secrets from me. Reckon I sort of took father’s place. Well, she told me, an’ as I thought a heap of Sam myself, it was all right. Mother, too, was pleased, an’ relieved, I reckon. Pretty soon Sam went down in the dumps an’ Nesta got her haid in the air. They quarreled. Sam wouldn’t tell me what aboot. An’ for the first time in her life Nesta kept things from me. She’d been goin’ to Shelby to dances—stayin’ overnight with Lil Snell, at her home. Sam didn’t go to some of these latest dances. He roamed around like a lost dawg. . . . Well, I took up the trail. An’, Cap, so help me Heaven, I found out Nesta was carryin’ on with Lee Tate.”
“No!” repudiated Tanner, passionately, jerking up with fire in his eye.
“Yes!—It’s damn hard to believe, Cap, but it’s true.”
“Aw! . . . Then she’d broke off with Playford?”
“Not a bit of it. They stayed engaged, an’ they’re still engaged. Now what do you think aboot it?”
“You said Nesta was carryin’ on with Tate. Jest how do you mean? Carryin’ on?”
Rich Ames shrank from the query. He writhed with his strong brown hands clenched between his knees, and the blue flash of his eyes centered with piteous doubt and entreaty upon the fire.
“If it was any girl but Nesta, I’d say she’d been more’n foolish,” he went on, slowly. “Nesta isn’t like any other girl. An’ I don’t mean headstrong an’ proud an’ moonstruck. Most girls are that way. I don’t know just what I mean. But Nesta is different. She might be mad at Sam. She shore hates to be bossed. All the same, lettin’ Lee Tate make up to her was daid wrong.”
“It was,” agreed Tanner, soberly. “Tate is a handsome fellar.”
“Shore. An’ he’s slick with girls. On an’ off he’s had most of the girls in the Tonto crazy aboot him. Nesta may be innocent of goin’ that far, but she shore has the name of it. Well, I didn’t believe much of the gossip. But when I watched Nesta an’ Tate one night at a dance, an’ later found out she met him at Snell’s, I got pretty sick. Then if I’d gone at Nesta sort of kind an’ understandin’ it’d been better. But I didn’t understand, an’ I was shore sore. So I made it worse.”
“Ahuh. Natural enough. Looks like a bad mess, Rich. But I’ll withhold my judgment till Nesta tells me her side.”
“Shore. You cain’t do no less. Lord! I’m glad you’re heah, Cap. Nesta is fond of you an’ she’ll listen to you. But, just now, if this goes on it’ll get beyond you an’ me. An’ poor Sam—why, he’s the laughin’-stock of Shelby! He knows it, too, an’ he
