"That must have been when he fired at me," she said.
"My G.o.d! Did he shoot at you?"
"Yes. Where is he now?" She shuddered.
"Cutting over the hills with Steve after him."
"Steve?"
"My friend, Lieutenant Fraser. He is an officer in the ranger force."
"Oh!" She relapsed into a momentary silence before she said: "He isn"t my brother at all. He is a murderer." She gave a sudden little moan of pain as memory pierced her of what he had said. "He bragged to me that he had killed my brother. He meant to kill me, I think."
"Sho! It doesn"t matter what the coyote meant. It"s all over now. You"re with friends."
A warm smile lit his steel-blue eyes, softened the lines of his lean, hard face. Never had shipwrecked mariner come to safer harbor than she.
She knew that this slim, sun-bronzed Westerner was a man"s man, that strength and nerve inhabited his sinewy frame. He would fight for her because she was a woman as long as he could stand and see.
A touch of color washed back into her cheeks, a glow of courage into her heart. "Yes, it"s all over. The weary, weary hours--and the fear--and the pain--and the dreadful thirst--and worst of all, him!"
She began to cry softly, hiding her face in his coat-sleeve.
"I"m crying because--it"s all over. I"m a little fool, just as--as you said I was."
"I didn"t know you then," he smiled. "I"m right likely to make snap-shot judgments that are "way off."
"You knew me well enough to--" She broke off in the middle, bathed in a flush of remembrance that brought her coppery head up from his arm instantly.
"Be careful. You"re dizzy yet."
"I"m all right now, thank you," she answered, her embarra.s.sed profile haughtily in the air. "But I"m ravenous for something to eat. It"s been twenty-four hours since I"ve had a bite. That"s why I"m weepy and faint. I should think you might make a snap-shot judgment that breakfast wouldn"t hurt me."
He jumped up contritely. "That"s right. What a goat I am!"
His long, clean stride carried him over the distance that separated him from his bronco. Out of the saddle-bags he drew some sandwiches wrapped in a newspaper.
"Here, Miss Margaret! You begin on these. I"ll have coffee ready in two shakes of a cow"s tail. And what do you say to bacon?"
He understood her to remark from the depths of a sandwich that she said "Amen!" to it, and that she would take everything he had and as soon as he could get it ready. She was as good as her word. He found no cause to complain of her appet.i.te. Bacon and sandwiches and coffee were all consumed in quant.i.ties reasonable for a famished girl who had been tramping actively for a day and a night, and, since she was a child of impulse, she turned more friendly eyes on him who had appeased her appet.i.te.
"I suppose you are a cowboy like everybody else in this country?" she ventured amiably after her hunger had become less sharp.
"No, I belong to the government reclamation service."
"Oh!" She had a vague idea she had heard of it before. "Who is it you reclaim? Indians, I suppose."
"We reclaim young ladies when we find them wandering about the desert,"
he smiled.
"Is that what the government pays you for?"
"Not entirely. Part of the time I examine irrigation projects and report on their feasibility. I have been known to build dams and bore tunnels."
"And what of the young ladies you reclaim? Do you bore them?" she asked saucily.
"I understand they have hitherto always found me very entertaining," he claimed boldly, his smiling eyes on her.
"Indeed!"
"But young ladies are peculiar. Sometimes we think we"re entertaining them when we ain"t."
"I"m sure you are right."
"And other times they"re interested when they pretend they"re not."
"It must be comforting to your vanity to think that," she said coldly.
For his words had recalled similar ones spoken by him twenty-four hours earlier, which in turn had recalled his unpardonable sin.
The lieutenant of rangers appeared over the hill and descended into the draw. Miss Kinney went to meet him.
"He got away?" she asked.
"Yes, ma"am. I lost him in some of these hollows, or rather I never found him. I"m going to take my hawss and swing round in a circle."
"What are you going to do with me?" she smiled.
"I been thinking that the best thing would be for you to go to the Mal Pais mines with Mr. Neill."
"Who is Mr. Neill?"
"The gentleman over there by the fire."
"Must I go with him? I should feel safer in your company, lieutenant."
"You"ll be safe enough in his, Miss Kinney."
"You know me then?" she asked.
"I"ve seen you at Fort Lincoln. You were pointed out to me once as a new teacher."
"But I don"t want to go to the Mal Pais mines. I want to go to Fort Lincoln. As to this gentleman, I have no claims on him and shall not trouble him to burden himself with me."
Steve laughed. "I don"t reckon he would think, it a terrible burden, ma"am. And about the Mal Pais--this is how it is. Fort Lincoln is all of sixty miles from here as the crow flies. The mines are about seventeen.
My notion was you could get there and take the stage to-morrow to your town."
"What shall I do for a horse?"
"I expect Mr. Neill will let you ride his. He can walk beside the hawss."