you know what that joke did?” asked Ronicky. “It made two men fight, then cross the continent together and get on the trail of a girl whose name they didn’t even know. They found the girl, and then she said she’d forgotten —but no, I don’t mean to blame you. There’s something queer behind it all. But I want to explain one thing. The reason that Bill didn’t get to that train wasn’t because he didn’t try. He did try. He tried so hard that he got into a fight with a gent that tried to hold him up for a few words, and Bill got shot off his hoss.”
“Shot?” asked the girl. “Shot?”
Suddenly she was clutching his arm, terrified at the thought. She recovered herself at once and drew away, eluding the hand of Ronicky. He made no further attempt to detain her.
But he had lifted the mask and seen the real state of her mind; and she, too, knew that the secret was discovered. It angered her and threw her instantly on the aggressive.
“I tell you what I guessed from the window,” said Ronicky. “You went down to the street, all prepared to meet up with poor old Bill—”
“Prepared to meet him?” She started up at Ronicky. “How in the world could I ever guess—”
She was looking up to him, trying to drag his eyes down to hers, but Ronicky diplomatically kept his attention straight ahead.
“You couldn’t guess,” he suggested, “but there was someone who could guess for you. Someone who pretty well knew we were in town, who wanted to keep you away from Bill because he was afraid—”
“Of what?” she demanded sharply.
“Afraid of losing you.”
This seemed to frighten her. “What do you know?” she asked.
“I know this,” he answered, “that I think a girl like you, all in all, is too good for any man. But, if any man ought to have her, it’s the gent that is fondest of her. And Bill is terrible fond of you, lady—he don’t think of nothing else. He’s grown thin as a ghost, longing for you.”
“So he sends another man to risk his life to find me and tell me about it?” she demanded, between anger and sadness.
“He didn’t send me—I just came. But the reason I came was because I knew Bill would give up without a fight.”
“I hate a man who won’t fight,” said the girl.
“It’s because he figures he’s so much beneath you,” said Ronicky. “And, besides, he can’t talk about himself. He’s no good at that at all. But, if it comes to fighting, lady, why, he rode a couple of hosses to death and stole another and had a gunfight, all for the sake of seeing you, when a train passed through a town.”
She was speechless.
“So I thought I’d come,” said Ronicky Doone, “and tell you the insides of things, the way I knew Bill wouldn’t and couldn’t, but I figure it don’t mean nothing much to you.”
She did not answer directly. She only said: “Are men like this in the West? Do they do so much for their friends?”
“For a gent like Bill Gregg, that’s simple and straight from the shoulder, they ain’t nothing too good to be done for him. What I’d do for him he’d do mighty pronto for me, and what he’d do for me—well, don’t you figure that he’d do ten times as much for the girl he loves? Be honest with me,” said Ronicky Doone. “Tell me if Bill means anymore to you than any stranger?”
“No—yes.”
“Which means simply yes. But how much more, lady?”
“I hardly know him. How can I say?”
“It’s sure an easy thing to say. You’ve wrote to him. You’ve had letters from him. You’ve sent him your picture, and he’s sent you his, and you’ve seen him on the street. Lady, you sure know Bill Gregg, and what do you think of him?”
“I think—”
“Is he a square sort of gent?”
“Y-yes.”
“The kind you’d trust?”
“Yes, but—”
“Is he the kind that would stick to the girl he loved and take care of her, through thick and thin?”
“You mustn’t talk like this,” said Caroline Smith, but her voice trembled, and her eyes told him to go on.
“I’m going back and tell Bill Gregg that, down in your heart, you love him just about the same as he loves you!”
“Oh,” she asked, “would you say a thing like that? It isn’t a bit true.”
“I’m afraid that’s the way I see it. When I tell him that, you can lay to it that old Bill will let loose all holds and start for you, and, if they’s ten brick walls and twenty gunmen in between, it won’t make no difference. He’ll find you, or die trying.”
Before he finished she was clinging to his arm.
“If you tell him, you’ll be doing a murder, Ronicky Doone. What he’ll face will be worse than twenty gunmen.”
“The gent that smiles, eh?”
“Yes, John Mark. No, no, I didn’t mean—”
“But you did, and I knew it, too. It’s John Mark that’s between you and Bill. I seen you in the street, when you were talking to poor Bill, look back over your shoulder at that devil standing in the window of this house.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“D’you know of one drop of kindness in his nature, lady?”
“Are we quite alone?”
“Not a soul around.”
“Then he is a devil, and, being a devil, no ordinary man has a chance against him—not a chance, Ronicky Doone. I don’t know what you did in the house, but I think you must have outfaced him in some way. Well, for that you’ll pay, be sure! And you’ll pay with your life, Ronicky. Every minute, now, you’re in danger of your life. You’ll keep on being in danger, until he feels that he has squared his account with you. Don’t you see that if I let Bill Gregg come near me—”
“Then Bill will be in danger of this same wolf of a man, eh? And, in spite of the fact that you like Bill—”
“Ah, yes, I do!”
“That you love him, in fact.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell you?” demanded the girl, breaking down suddenly. “I do love him, and I can never see him to tell him, because I dread John Mark.”
“Rest easy,” said Ronicky, “you’ll see Bill, or else he’ll die trying to get to you.”
“If you’re his friend—”
“I’d
