Do you mean you"d marry--" Kurt had an incredulous expression on his face.
"In a second, if she"d have me. I"d buy her everything she wanted so she wouldn"t have to steal."
"But after you were married and people found out what she was, you"d be ashamed--"
"Ashamed! I"d put my little thief on a throne, and whoever dared to try to take her off would get it in the neck."
The car speeded up again. The man at the wheel saw the utter futility of further expostulation.
"I"ll leave it to time and cow-punching," he thought sagely. "Time and work are the best healers, especially for the young. Preaching is of no avail."
Night came on. Jo looked up at a little lone star which was trying to make its light shine without a properly darkened background.
"That"s a poor little orphan star--like her. I"ll look for it every night now. I wish I hadn"t blabbed to Kurt. He hasn"t a nose for orange blossoms."
In the fortnight that followed, Jo worked indefatigably, but his heart and his thoughts were back in Chicago, except when now and then his eyes turned to a fertile little beauty-spot valleyed between the hills. For here he had located an imaginary cottage--his cottage and hers. This mirage, of course, always showed a little slip of a girl standing in the doorway. To the surprise and dismay of his a.s.sociates Jo the spender became Jo the saver that his dream might come true.
He offered no addendum to the revelation he had made to Kurt. They met often, but in ranch life discourse is not frequent, and Jo instinctively felt that his recital of Love"s Young Dream had fallen upon unsympathetic ears, while the foreman, unversed in the Language of Love, was mystified by the lad"s silence.
Three weeks later the "man without a nose for orange blossoms" was again in town. As acting sheriff of the county lately, Kurt had dropped in to see the jailer.
"How"s business, Bender? Any new boarders?" he asked.
"Yes; a gal run in for stealing. Didn"t find the goods on her; but she"s a sly one with the record of being a lifelong thief. She strayed up here from Chicago."
"What"s her name?" he asked casually.
"Marta Sills."
"I wonder if it could be Jo"s Marta," the acting sheriff thought suddenly.
"She may have followed him up here."
He walked back to the hotel, trying to decide whether he should tell Jo.
If she should prove to be his girl, her arrest up here should show him that his love hadn"t worked the miracle he expected. Jo had been a little more quiet since his return, but he gave no signs of pining away, and maybe if nothing revived his interest, it might die a natural death. The story Jo had told him of the little waif had made a deep impression upon him, however.
"Poor little brat!" he thought. "What chance does her kind have? I suppose I ought to give her one. There is one person in the world who might be able to reform her, and I"d put her in that person"s charge if it weren"t for wrecking Jo"s life."
All through the afternoon while transacting the business that had brought him to town, his heart and his head were having a wrestling match, the former being at the disadvantage of being underworked.
"I"ll go up and take a look at her," he suddenly decided. "Maybe I can tell from Jo"s description whether she is his Marta or not."
On his way to the jail he was accosted by a big, jovial man.
"Don"t know where I can get an extra helper, do you, Kurt? Simpson, my right-hand, has gone back to Canada to enlist."
"How providential!" thought Kurt.
"Why, yes; Mr. Westcott," he replied: "We"re well up with our work, and I could spare Jo Gary for a few weeks."
"Jo Gary! May Heaven bless you! When can I get him?"
"Going out home now?"
"Yes; on my way."
"Stop at the ranch and take him along with you. Tell him I said to go.
It"ll be all right with Kingdon."
Westcott renewed his blessings upon Kurt and drove on.
At the jail Kurt looked in on the latest arrival. She was sitting at a table in Bender"s back office, her head bowed in her hands. There was something appealing in the drooping of her shoulders and in her shabby attire.
"Now Jo is disposed of, she shall have her chance, anyway," he decided.
Without speaking to the girl, he sought Bender and they held a brief consultation.
CHAPTER II
"Aren"t we going to stop at all, Mr. Sheriff Man?"
A soft, plaintive note in the voice made Kurt Walters turn the brake of an old, rickety automobile and halt in the dust-white road, as he cast a sharply scrutinizing glance upon the atom of a girl who sat beside him.
She was a dejected, dusty, little figure, drooping under the jolt of the jerking car and the bright rays of hills-land sunshine. She was young--in years; young, too, in looks, as Kurt saw when she raised her eyes which were soft and almond-shaped; but old, he a.s.sumed, in much that she should not have been.
She had found it a long, hard ride across the plains, and the end of her endurance had been prefaced by frequent sighs, changes of position and softly m.u.f.fled exclamations, all seemingly unnoted by the man beside her, whose deep-set eyes had remained fixed on the open s.p.a.ce ahead, his slim, brown hands gripping the wheel, his lean, sinewy body bending slightly forward.
His tenseness relaxed; a startled, remorseful look came into his eyes as he saw two tears coursing down her cheeks. They were unmistakably real tears,--though, as he was well aware, they came from physical causes alone. Still, they penetrated the armor of unconcern with which he had girded himself.
"What for?" he asked curtly.
"What for!" she echoed, her mouth quivering into pathetic droops. "For rest, of course. You may be used to this kind of locomotion, but I"m not very well upholstered, and I"m shaken to bits. Fact is, I"m just all pegged out, old man. Have a heart, and stop for repairs. What"s your rush, anyway? I can"t get loose hereabouts, and I haven"t anywhere to go, anyhow. Didn"t mind getting "took" at all, at all. How many more miles is it to the end of your trail? This is a trail, isn"t it?"
"A great many miles," he replied, "and it was on your account more than any other that I was hurrying to get to the--"
"Jail," she answered supinely, as he hesitated.
"No," he said grimly. "I was going to take you home--for to-night, anyway."
"Home! Oh, how you startle me! I didn"t know there was any of those home-stuff places left except in the movies. I never was much stuck on home, so you needn"t be afraid to call it "jail" for fear of hurting my feelings."
"You can"t work on my sympathy that way," he said coldly.
"Dear me!" she replied with a silly, little giggle. "I gave up trying to work the sympathy racket long ago. Everyone"s too smart nowadays. Honest, I"ve no longings for home. I feel sorry for anyone who"s tied down to one.
Why don"t you kick over the traces and come off your trail and see what"s on the other side of your hills? I"d hate to take root here. Say, Mr.
Sheriff Man, you look a good sort, even if you have played you were deaf and dumb for the whole of this awful ride. Let"s sidetrack the trail and go--home--by moonlight."