not?”
“For the simple rayson thot in a case like thot the mon has no control over the baste, ma’am. ‘Firebrand’ told me only yisterday mornin’ thot there was no holdin’ the black whin somebuddy tried to shoot wid him on his back.”
The girl remembered how Trevison had tried to speak to her immediately after the upsetting of Corrigan, and she knew now, that he had wanted to explain his action. Reviewing the incident in the light of Carson’s explanation, she felt that Corrigan was quite as much at fault as Trevison. Somehow, that knowledge was vaguely satisfying.
She did not succeed in questioning Carson further about Trevison, though there were many points over which she felt a disturbing curiosity, for Agatha came in presently, and after nodding stiffly to Carson, seated herself and gazed aloofly out of a window.
Carson, ill at ease in Agatha’s presence, soon invented an excuse to go out upon the platform, leaving Rosalind to explain his presence in the car.
“What on earth could you have to say to a section boss—or he to you?” demanded Agatha. “You are becoming very—er—indiscreet, Rosalind.”
The girl smiled. It was a smile that would have betrayed the girl had Agatha possessed the physiognomist’s faculty of analyzation, for in it was much relief and renewed faith. For the rider of the black horse was not the brutal creature she had thought him.
When the private car came to a stop, Rosalind looked out of the window to see the steep wall of the cut towering above her. Aunt Agatha still sat near, and when Rosalind got up Agatha rose also, registering an objection:
“I think your father might have arranged to have some man meet this outlaw. It is not, in my opinion, a proper errand for a girl. But if you are determined to go, I presume I shall have to follow.”
“It won’t be necessary,” said Rosalind. But Agatha set her lips tightly. And when the girl reached the platform Agatha was close behind her.
But both halted on the platform as they were about to descend the steps. They heard Carson’s voice, loud and argumentative:
“There’s a lady aboored, I tell ye! If ye shoot, you’re a lot of damned rapscallions, an’ I’ll come up there an’ bate the head off ye!”
“Stow your gab an’ produce the lady!” answered a voice. It came from above, and Rosalind stepped down to the floor of the cut and looked upward. On the crest of the southern wall were a dozen men—cowboys—armed with rifles, peering down at the car. They shifted their gaze to her when she stepped into view, and one of them laughed.
“Correct, boys,” he said; “it’s a lady.” There was a short silence; Rosalind saw the men gather close—they were talking, but she could not hear their voices. Then the man who had spoken first stepped to the edge of the cut and called: “What do you want?”
The girl answered: “I want to speak with Mr. Trevison.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” came back the voice; “but Trevison ain’t here—he’s at the Diamond K.”
Rosalind reached a decision quickly. “Aunty,” she said; “I am going to the Diamond K.”
“I forbid you!” said Agatha sternly. “I would not trust you an instant with those outlaws!”
“Nonsense,” smiled Rosalind. “I am coming up,” she called to the man on the crest; “do you mind?”
The man laughed. “I reckon not, ma’am.”
Rosalind smiled at Carson, who was watching her admiringly, and to the smile he answered, pointing eastward to where the slope of the hill melted into the plains: “You’ll have to go thot way, ma’am.” He laughed. “You’re perfectly safe wid thim min, ma’am—they’re Trevison’s—an’ Trevison wud shoot the last mon av thim if they’d harm a hair av your pretty head. Go along, ma’am, an’ God bless ye! Ye’ll be savin’ a heap av throuble for me an’ me ginneys, an’ the railroad company.” He looked with bland derision at Agatha who gave him a glance of scornful reproof as she followed after her charge.
The girl was panting when she reached the crest of the cut. Agatha was a little white, possibly more from apprehension than from indignation, though that emotion had its influence; but their reception could not have been more formal had it taken place in an eastern drawing-room. For every hat was off, and each man was trying his best to conceal his interest. And when men have not seen a woman for a long time, the appearance of a pretty one makes it rather hard to maintain polite poise. But they succeeded, which spoke well for their manliness. If they exchanged surreptitious winks over the appearance of Agatha, they are to be excused, for that lady’s demeanor was one of frigid haughtiness, which is never quite impressive to those who live close to nature.
In an exchange of words, brief and pointed, Rosalind learned that it was three miles to the Diamond K ranchhouse, and that Trevison had given orders not to be disturbed unless the railroad company attempted to continue work at the cut. Could she borrow one of their horses, and a guide?
“You bet!” emphatically returned the spokesman who, she learned later, was Trevison’s foreman. She should have the gentlest “cayuse” in the “bunch,” and the foreman would do the guiding, himself. At which word Agatha, noting the foreman’s enthusiasm, glared coldly at him.
But here Agatha was balked by the insurmountable wall of convention. She had ridden horses, to be sure, in her younger days; but when the foreman, at Rosalind’s request, offered her a pony, she sniffed scornfully and marched down the slope toward the private car, saying that if Rosalind was determined to persist she might persist without her assistance. For there was no side-saddle in the riding equipment of the outfit. And Rosalind, quite aware of the prudishness exhibited by her chaperon, and not unmindful of the mirth that the men were trying their best to keep concealed, rode on with the foreman, with something resembling thankfulness for the temporary freedom tugging at her heart.
Trevison had camped all night on the crest of the cut. It was only at dawn that Barkwell, the foreman who had escorted Rosalind, had appeared at the cut on his way to town, and discovered him, and then the foreman’s plans were changed and he was dispatched to the Diamond K for reinforcements. Trevison had ridden back to the Diamond K to care for his arm, which had pained him frightfully during the night, and at ten o’clock in the morning he was stretched out, fully dressed and wide awake on the bed in his room in the ranchhouse, frowningly reviewing the events of the day before.
He was in no good humor, and when he heard Barkwell hallooing from the yard near the house, he got up and looked out of a window, a scowl on his face.
Rosalind was not in the best of spirits, herself, for during the ride to the ranchhouse she had been sending subtly-questioning shafts at the foreman—questions that mostly concerned Trevison—and they had all fell, blunted and impotent, from the armor of Barkwell’s reticence. But a glance at Trevison’s face, ludicrous in its expression of stunned amazement, brought a broad smile to her own. She saw his lips form her name, and then she waited demurely until she saw him coming out of the ranchhouse door toward her.
He had quite recovered from his surprise, she noted; his manner was that of the day before, when she had seen him riding the black horse. When she saw him coming lightly toward her, she at first had eyes for nothing but his perfect figure, feeling the strength that his close-fitting clothing revealed so unmistakably, and an unaccountable blush glowed in her cheeks. And then
