He drew a breath: "All I can say is, if you ever come over my way, I"ll show you as good a time as I know how to."
She put up her hand: "Wait till you see how you like _my_ good time."
He was quick to come back. "I"ll agree right now to like anything you offer--and I don"t care a hang what it is, either."
Looking straight at him she asked a question. Its emphasis lay in her quiet tone: "Will you stand to that?" He looked at her until she felt his eyes were going right through her: "I"ve got enemies," he said slowly, and there was now more than a touch of hardness in his voice; "most men have. But the worst of "em never claimed my word isn"t good."
"Then," exclaimed Kate, hastening to escape the serious tone, "you tend counter while I go and see about the horses."
"No," he objected, "that"s a man"s job. You tell me where to go and _I"ll_ get the horses."
Kate was most firm: "If you"re going to ride with _me_," she said, "you must do my way. Take a woman"s job for a few minutes and see how you like it."
He regarded her with the simplicity of a child, but replied like a case-hardened cowboy: "I don"t like a woman"s job, of course. But I"m ready to do any blamed thing you say."
"Do you suppose," Kate demanded with an air, "they would turn two horses over to _you_ up at Doubleday"s?"
She had put her foot in it: "I tell you," he protested, "I don"t want to ride a horse of Doubleday"s. I"m up here to talk to Barb Doubleday.
And n.o.body can say just how it"s coming out. At the ranch they swore he was at Sleepy Cat. I rode down there and they told me he was at the Junction, so I took the train over here. Now you tell me he"s at the mines--that"s where I"ll say what I"ve got to say. But I don"t want to take any advantage. And I don"t want to impose on his property rights so much as a single hair. That"s exactly what"s between us."
Kate, established in treacherous ambush, felt qualms at his stern, clear code.
She tried to shut him off, but he was wrought up: "Barb swore to me once he had nothing to do with it," he persisted obstinately. "All I can say is, if a man fools me once it"s his fault; if he fools me twice, it"s mine."
"What about a woman?" asked Kate, trying hard to say one thing and think another.
He opened his eyes: "I never thought much about that. A man can"t fight a woman," he returned reflectively. "And I"ve yet to see one I could fool."
"What should you do," she asked, turning her back while she straightened her hat in the buffet mirror, "if you ever met one that fooled you?"
"No woman would ever take the trouble."
She laughed a little: "You never can tell."
"If a woman ever fooled me, she"d have to fool herself first--so she"d be the loser."
"What a philosopher!"
"First and last, I"ve been called a good many names--some full hard--but never a philosopher before."
Kate started for the front door: "Hold on a minute," he objected, "what"s to do here while you"re gone?"
"Serve coffee and sandwiches if anybody comes in. This time of day there"s never anybody comes in."
He turned on his stool: "How soon"ll you be back?"
"In a few minutes."
"Get a good horse for yourself."
Kate gave him a parting shot: "Of course you think I can"t ride."
It did not take her long to get up the hill. Breathless, she encountered old Henry in the garden, asked him for the ponies and almost ran into the house. Her father was asleep. There was no reason to stir him up over a situation that she was resolved to handle and felt she could handle. She got into her riding clothes in a trice, all the time wondering whether she could hold her wild man in leash long enough to defeat him. Had he been more like anybody she had ever met and known, the problem would have been less confusing. But she determined to shut her eyes and win the fight if she could, and to this end draft every resource. So she thought, at least, as she caught up her little revolver and, dropping it into the scabbard she had belted about her waist, set forth.
She rode back one of her own ponies and led the other. Her enemy had good ears for when she was half way to the eating-house he walked out on the platform and silently surveyed her approach. Kate watched him narrowly and drew up before him to estimate the effect. She was disappointed, she had to confess, at his cool indifference, for she thought her riding rig unusually pretty. It had seemingly failed to impress her queer Westerner. His eyes were all for the horses. "Clean ponies," he observed, taking the bridle rein from her hand as he looked the two over.
"I forgot to ask what kind of a saddle you like," she observed indifferently. He was scanning the horses and his eyes not being on her she got her first real good look at her antagonist--whether he was to be her victim she was in somewhat anxious doubt.
CHAPTER VI
WHICH WINS?
He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as his simple manner and una.s.suming rig--neither soiled nor fresh--made him seem so; at all events what he might look like was apparently of slight moment to him. He had a good walk--Kate noticed that when he crossed the platform; not the choppy, high-heeled gait of a man that never does anything but ride, but an easy step that matched the expressions of his eyes. His quick movements seemed, as usual with bronzed Western men, younger than his face; and his twenty-eight years would, as a first impression, have pa.s.sed for well above thirty, with Kate. She had struggled too long with charcoal and lead pencils not to perceive that his frame was clean and his shoulders good; and his head was well set on them, if the man would carry it where it belonged. But he was plainly not vain; and since we usually accept at sight whatever draft men and women themselves draw on our impressions, Kate would have regarded him ordinarily with no more than he demanded--indifference.
"Any kind of saddle will do me," he answered in response to an inquiry; and he repeated his compliment to the horses. He looked well at his own: "This is a good pony." Kate a.s.sumed a little: "All our ponies are good."
"I wish you"d show them to me sometime," was his una.s.suming request. The remark should have been enough to warn Kate that her deception rested on very thin ice; that it was more than probable he had already penetrated much of it. But, a beginner in deception, she was intent only on her own part and took his good-natured acquiescence at its face value. The moment he saw her ponies he knew they were Doubleday"s: yet he seemed willing to forego his scruple rather than to lose the ride.
Kate, too, was disposed to be amiable: "I will show them to you sometime," she said promptly.
But whenever she thawed for an instant she felt directly the necessity of freezing up again. Her remarks were divided as evenly as a mountain April day--one moment spring, the next winter. Happily for her purposes, the day itself was spring. She had mounted her horse but as she spoke, she slipped from her saddle, threw her lines and, walking hurriedly into the dining room, returned with a handful of wrapped sandwiches. She looked at him as she held the package out: "How can we carry them?"
He disposed of the store in a capacious pocket and then hesitated: "I wonder if you"d mind waiting five minutes while I go up to Doubleday"s house."
"What for?" she asked, professing surprise.
"To see what I can find out about where he is."
"I"ve told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go riding with me and I get the horses--I come first, don"t I?" she asked cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle.
He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony.
She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don"t mind rather rough riding?"
"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said.
Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle.
Kate rode d.i.c.k, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put him on exhibition--perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only indifferently well--yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a disappointment.
If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted riotously, the rider"s head, rising like a monitor straight from his slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces.
"You take the trail," said Kate"s guest tersely, as they swung out on the desert.
"No," she returned, "you."