"That sounds like hard work."
"It"s certainly----" He just hesitated and then continued: "hard on the ammunition."
She found by this time she could tolerate the dry smile that lighted his face now and again, and the drawl of words that went with the expression.
At times he seemed simple, yet there was shrewdness behind his humor.
"I didn"t see you stop back there on the bench to pick anything up," she remarked abruptly, thinking of her own pistol again.
"I circled back to get it."
"Without dismounting?""
"You wouldn"t hardly want to get off to pick up anything as light as that."
"I wish I"d seen you do it."
"If you"d been looking I might"ve been trying to get hold of it yet."
She examined the Colt"s gun curiously. She asked him how to handle it.
He obligingly broke it, emptied the cylinders and explained how it was fired. But she was not equal to handling the big thing, and told him so.
"Though if I should want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn"t it?"
she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger.
"Not without c.o.c.king the gun."
"No, but I mean suppose I really _should_ want to kill you----"
"I"ll show you." He c.o.c.ked the revolver and placed it again in her hand and it lay once more with her finger on the trigger.
"Now," he explained, "I"m covered."
"And to kill you all I have to do is to pull the trigger."
"Pulling the trigger, the way things are now, would certainly be a big start in that direction. But"--the dry suspicion of a laugh crossed his eyes--"to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger doesn"t always kill him--not, anyways, in this country. If it did, the population would fall off pretty strong in some of these northern counties. And you might be surprised if I told you you couldn"t pull the trigger right now, anyway."
"How do you know that?"
"Try it."
"But I might kill you!"
"That"s the point."
"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I _wanted_ to."
"No matter how you put it, it"s all the same--you can"t want to."
"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something--like serving papers, for instance."
His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel under his hand: "You"d have a better show to do that if you went at it in another way."
"What way?"
"Well--by asking me not to serve them, for instance."
"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn"t do it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation.
He returned her gaze unafraid: "Try it," was his answer.
She took a deep breath. Then she tossed her head: "I probably shouldn"t care enough about it for that. Why don"t you carry two revolvers?"
"Too much like baggage."
"Wouldn"t it be a lot safer?"
He smiled: "If one gun refused to go off promptly, two wouldn"t help a lot."
Her eyes and her thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, holding the gun out in both hands and looking away.
"Shall we let the dog go this time?" she heard him ask as he lowered the hammer.
CHAPTER VII
THE CLOSE OF THE DAY
They rode straight home. On the way d.i.c.k went lame and both dismounted to examine him. "This will make you miss your train," she suggested, hypocritically.
He had d.i.c.k"s foot up. His comment on the remark was very like the rest of his comments. "Not this," he said--and without looking up.
"Do you mean to say you"ve missed it anyway?" asked Kate.
"What does the sun say?"
She bit her lip: "Too bad," she exclaimed, looking across the distance that still lay between them and the Junction.
"I don"t see anything wrong with his foot," he announced, completing his inspection. "I think he wrenched himself."
He said no more till they started again. And then resumed in his odd way just where they had left off talking: "I"ve been trying to figure out why you wanted me to miss the train." She looked at him in surprise. "I think you did want me to," he continued. "But I can"t figure out why."
She protested, but not with too many words. She felt sure he was not easily to be deceived. In any case, however, he was unflinchingly amiable.
After they got back to the Junction the totally unexpected happened.
They dismounted and she went into the lunch room. Her victim pursued an examination of d.i.c.k"s leg. An early supper was being served in the dining-room to a freight train crew. Two of the Doubleday cowboys from the ranch came into the lunch-room from the front door. Kate, at the desk, was making ready to manage her own escape from the scene. The smaller cowboy, walking in last, looked back curiously at her riding companion as he stood with d.i.c.k"s hoof on his knee. The man slouched up to the counter: "Wouldn"t that kill you?" muttered the smaller man to his partner.