For two days Bo was confined to her bed, suffering considerable pain,
and subject to fever, during which she talked irrationally. Some of this
talk afforded Helen as vast an amusement as she was certain it would
have lifted Tom Carmichael to a seventh heaven.
The third day, however, Bo was better, and, refusing to remain in bed,
she hobbled to the sitting-room, where she divided her time between
staring out of the window toward the corrals and pestering Helen with
questions she tried to make appear casual. But Helen saw through her
case and was in a state of glee. What she hoped most for was that
Carmichael would suddenly develop a little less inclination for Bo. It
was that kind of treatment the young lady needed. And now was the great
opportunity. Helen almost felt tempted to give the cowboy a hint.
Neither this day, nor the next, however, did he put in an appearance
at the house, though Helen saw him twice on her rounds. He was busy, as
usual, and greeted her as if nothing particular had happened.
Roy called twice, once in the afternoon, and again during the evening.
He grew more likable upon longer acquaintance. This last visit he
rendered Bo speechless by teasing her about another girl Carmichael was
going to take to a dance. Bo's face showed that her vanity could not
believe this statement, but that her intelligence of young men credited
it with being possible. Roy evidently was as penetrating as he was kind.
He made a dry, casual little remark about the snow never melting on the
mountains during the latter part of March; and the look with which he
accompanied this remark brought a blush to Helen's cheek.
After Roy had departed Bo said to Helen: “Confound that fellow! He sees
right through me.”
“My dear, you're rather transparent these days,” murmured Helen.
“You needn't talk. He gave you a dig,” retorted Bo. “He just knows
you're dying to see the snow melt.”
“Gracious! I hope I'm not so bad as that. Of course I want the snow
melted and spring to come, and flowers--”
“Hal Ha! Ha!” taunted Bo. “Nell Rayner, do you see any green in my eyes?
Spring to come! Yes, the poet said in the spring a young man's fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love. But that poet meant a young woman.”
Helen gazed out of the window at the white stars.
“Nell, have you seen him--since I was hurt?” continued Bo, with an
effort.
“Him? Who?”
“Oh, whom do you suppose? I mean Tom!” she responded, and the last word
came with a burst.
“Tom? Who's he? Ah, you mean Las Vegas. Yes, I've seen him.”
“Well, did he ask a-about me?”
“I believe he did ask how you were--something like that.”
“Humph! Nell, I don't always trust you.” After that she relapsed into
silence, read awhile, and dreamed awhile, looking into the fire, and
then she limped over to kiss Helen good night and left the room.
Next day she was rather quiet, seeming upon the verge of one of the
dispirited spells she got infrequently. Early in the evening, just after
the lights had been lit and she had joined Helen in the sitting-room, a
familiar step sounded on the loose boards of the porch.
Helen went to the door to admit Carmichael. He was clean-shaven,
dressed in his dark suit, which presented such marked contrast from
his riding-garb, and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Nevertheless,
despite all this style, he seemed more than usually the cool, easy,
careless cowboy.
“Evenin', Miss Helen,” he said, as he stalked in. “Evenin', Miss Bo. How
are you-all?”
Helen returned his greeting with a welcoming smile.
“Good evening--TOM,” said Bo, demurely.
That assuredly was the first time she had ever called him Tom. As she
spoke she looked distractingly pretty and tantalizing. But if she had
calculated to floor Carmichael with the initial, half-promising, wholly
mocking use of his name she had reckoned without cause. The cowboy
received that greeting as if he had heard her use it a thousand times
or had not heard it at all. Helen decided if he was acting a part he
was certainly a clever actor. He puzzled her somewhat, but she liked his
look, and his easy manner, and the something about him that must have
been his unconscious sense of pride. He had gone far enough, perhaps too
far, in his overtures to Bo.
“How are you feelin'?” he asked.
“I'm better to-day,” she replied, with downcast eyes. “But I'm lame
yet.”
“Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there shore wasn't any
joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar's knee is a bad place to
hurt, if he has to keep on ridin'.”
“Oh, I'll be well soon. How's Sam? I hope he wasn't crippled.”
“Thet Sam--why, he's so tough he never knowed he had a fall.”
“Tom--I--I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved.”
She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little
intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this
infatuated young man.
“Aw, you heard about that,” replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand
to make light of it. “Nothin' much. It had to be done. An' shore I was
afraid of Roy. He'd been bad. An' so would any of the other boys. I'm
sorta lookin' out for all of them, you know, actin' as Miss Helen's
foreman now.”
Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was
stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact
and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the
detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his
magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She
sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into
the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss
for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her
wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a
twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked
startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.
“But--you told Riggs I was your girl!” Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And
Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the
soft, arch glance which accompanied it.
Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.
“Shore. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I
reckon it was presumin' of me, an' I shore apologize.”
Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.
“Wal, I just run in to say howdy an' to inquire after you-all,” said
Carmichael. “I'm goin' to the dance, an' as Flo lives out of town a ways
I'd shore better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you'll be ridin'
Sam soon. An' good night, Miss Helen.”
Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone.
Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door
after him.
The instant he had departed Bo's transformation was tragic.
“Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs--that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!”
“Bo!” expostulated Helen. “The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but
she's very nice and pleasant. I liked her.”
“Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!” declared Bo,
terribly.
“Why didn't you appreciate Tom when you had him?” asked Helen.
Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to
the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her
spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided
Helen's gaze and left the room.
Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her
a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark
broodings, from them to' wistfulness, and at last to a pride that
sustained her.
Late in the afternoon, at Helen's leisure hour, when she and Bo were in
the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted
the porch. Opening to a loud knock, Helen was surprised to see Beasley.
And out in the court were several mounted horsemen. Helen's heart sank.
This visit, indeed, had been foreshadowed.
“Afternoon, Miss Rayner,” said Beasley, doffing his sombrero. “I've
called on a little business deal. Will you see me?”
Helen acknowledged his greeting while she thought rapidly. She might
just as well see him and have that inevitable interview done with.
“Come in,” she said, and when he had entered she closed the door. “My
sister, Mr. Beasley.”
“How d' you do, Miss?” said the rancher, in bluff, loud voice.
Bo acknowledged the introduction with a frigid little bow.
At close range Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather
handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin,
and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was
reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered.
If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she would have
distrusted him.
“I'd called sooner, but I was waitin' for old Jose, the Mexican who
herded for me when I was pardner to your uncle,” said Beasley, and he
sat down to put his huge gloved hands on his knees.
“Yes?” queried Helen, interrogatively.
“Jose rustled over from Magdalena, an' now I can back up my claim....
Miss Rayner, this hyar ranch ought to be mine an' is mine. It wasn't so
big or so well stocked when Al Auchincloss beat me out of it. I reckon
I'll allow for thet. I've papers, an' old Jose for witness. An' I
calculate you'll pay me eighty thousand dollars, or else I'll take over
the ranch.”
Beasley spoke in an ordinary, matter-of-fact tone that certainly seemed
sincere, and his manner was blunt, but perfectly natural.
“Mr. Beasley, your claim is no news to me,” responded Helen, quietly.
“I've heard about it. And I questioned my uncle. He swore on his
death-bed that he did not owe you a dollar. Indeed, he claimed the
indebtedness was yours to him. I could find nothing in his papers, so I
must repudiate your claim. I will not take it seriously.”
“Miss Rayner, I can't blame you for takin' Al's word against mine,” said
Beasley. “An' your stand is natural. But you're a stranger here an' you
know nothin' of stock deals in these ranges. It ain't fair to speak
bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by
stealin' sheep an' unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher
I know. It was mine. An' we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin'.”
Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.
“Talk's cheap anywhere, an' in the West talk ain't much at all,”
continued Beasley. “I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make
a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with
witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this....
Let's marry an' settle a bad deal thet way.”
The man's direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying
consideration for her woman's attitude, was amazing, ignorant, and base;
but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.
“Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can't accept your offer,” she replied.
“Would you take time an' consider?” he asked, spreading wide his huge
gloved hands.
“Absolutely no.”
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but
the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it
stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.
“Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you
off,” he said.
“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a
sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You
can't put me off.”
“An' why can't I?” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,” declared Helen,
forcibly.
“Who 're you goin' to prove it to--thet I'm dishonest?”
“To my men--to your men--to the people of Pine--to everybody. There's
not a person who won't believe me.”
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated
by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she
spiritedly defended her cause.
“An' how 're you goin' to prove all thet?” he growled.
“Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with
his gang up in the woods--and hired him to make off with me?” asked
Helen, in swift, ringing words.
The dark olive of Beasley's bold face shaded to a dirty white.
“Wha-at?” he jerked out, hoarsely.
“I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft of that
cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of your deal with the
outlaw.”
Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he flung his
glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up he uttered a sibilant
hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he jerked it open, and slammed it
behind him. His loud voice, hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and
crack of hoofs.
Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just recovering her
composure, Carmichael presented himself at the open door. Bo was not
there. In the dimming twilight Helen saw that the cowboy was pale,
somber, grim.
“Oh, what's happened?” cried Helen.
“Roy's been shot. It come off in Turner's saloon But he ain't dead. We
packed him over to Widow Cass's. An' he said for me to tell you he'd
pull through.”
“Shot! Pull through!” repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing exclamation.
She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and a cold checking of blood
in all her external body.
“Yes, shot,” replied Carmichael, fiercely.
“An', whatever he says, I reckon he won't pull through.”
“O Heaven, how terrible!” burst out Helen. “He was so good--such a
man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my behalf. Tell me, what
happened? Who shot him?”
“Wal, I don't know. An' thet's what's made me hoppin' mad. I wasn't
there when it come off. An' he won't tell me.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because he wanted
to get even. But, after thinkin' it over, I guess he doesn't want me
lookin' up any one right now for fear I might get hurt. An' you're goin'
to need your friends. Thet's all I can make of Roy.”
Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley's call on her that
afternoon and all that had occurred.
“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated Carmichael, in utter
confoundment. “He wanted you to marry him!”
“He certainly did. I must say it was a--a rather abrupt proposal.”
Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered
behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath.
“Miss Nell, I've shore felt in my bones thet I'm the boy slated to brand
thet big bull.”
“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”
“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was
thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an' Riggs--”
“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.
“Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he'd better keep out of my
way.... An' Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an
argument an' then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin' Roy on the
floor. I come in a little later. Roy was still layin' there. Nobody was
doin' anythin' for him. An' nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal,
I got help an' packed Roy over to Widow Cass's. Roy seemed all right.
But he was too bright an' talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung,
thet's shore. An' he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet
skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An' if Roy croaks I reckon I'll--”
“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?” demanded
Helen, angrily.
“'Cause somebody's got to be killed 'round here. Thet's why!” he snapped
back.
“Even so--should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?” asked
Helen, reproachfully.
At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.
“Aw, Miss Nell, I'm only mad. If you'll just be patient with me--an'
mebbe coax me.... But I can't see no other way out.”
“Let's hope and pray,” said Helen, earnestly. “You spoke of my coaxing
Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”
“To-morrow, I reckon. I'll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We've
got to play safe from now on. An' what do you say to me an' Hal sleepin'
here at the ranch-house?”
“Indeed I'd feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”
“Allright. An' now I'll be goin' to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn't made
you pale an' scared like this.”
About ten o'clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine,
and tied up the team before Widow Cass's cottage.
The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a
drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa
covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of
blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.
Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man
lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and
reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.
Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but
cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.
“My land! I'm thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “An' you've
fetched the little lass as I've not got acquainted with yet.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How--how is Roy?” replied Helen, anxiously
scanning the wrinkled face.
“Roy? Now don't you look so scared. Roy's 'most ready to git on his hoss
an' ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin'. An' he made
me hold a lookin'-glass for him to shave. How's thet fer a man with a
bullet-hole through him! You can't kill them Mormons, nohow.”
She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch underneath a
window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He
lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck,
disclosing bandages.
“Mornin'--girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you, now, comin' down.”
Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness, as she
greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility
struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and
apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the
couch for the girls.
“Wal, what's ailin' you this nice mornin'?” asked Roy, eyes on the
cowboy.
“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin' the smile of a fellar goin' to
be married?” retorted Carmichael.
“Shore you haven't made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.
Bo blushed rosy red, and the cowboy's face lost something of its somber
hue.
“I allow it's none of your d--darn bizness if SHE ain't made up with
me,” he said.
“Las Vegas, you're a wonder with a hoss an' a rope, an' I reckon with a
gun, but when it comes to girls you shore ain't there.”
“I'm no Mormon, by golly! Come, Ma Cass, let's get out of here, so they
can talk.”
“Folks, I was jest a-goin' to say thet Roy's got fever an' he oughtn't
t' talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she and Carmichael went into
the kitchen and closed the door.
Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly piercing than
ever.
“My brother John was here. He'd just left when you come. He rode home
to tell my folks I'm not so bad hurt, an' then he's goin' to ride a
bee-line into the mountains.”
Helen's eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.
“He's goin' after Dale. I sent him. I reckoned we-all sorta needed sight
of thet doggone hunter.”
Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo.
“Don't you agree with me, lass?”
“I sure do,” replied Bo, heartily.
All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her realization; and
then came swell and beat of heart, and inconceivable chafing of a tide
at its restraint.
“Can John--fetch Dale out--when the snow's so deep?” she asked,
unsteadily.
“Shore. He's takin' two hosses up to the snow-line. Then, if necessary,
he'll go over the pass on snow-shoes. But I bet him Dale would ride out.
Snow's about gone except on the north slopes an' on the peaks.”
“Then--when may I--we expect to see Dale?”
“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now.... Miss Helen,
there's trouble afoot.”
“I realize that. I'm ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about Beasley's visit
to me?”
“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.
Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances of that
visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy was swearing to
himself.
“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem!... Thet I'd never have reckoned.
The--low-down coyote of a greaser!... Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up
with Senor Beasley last night he was shore spoilin' from somethin'; now
I see what thet was. An' I reckon I picked out the bad time.”
“For what? Roy, what did you do?”
“Wal, I'd made up my mind awhile back to talk to Beasley the first
chance I had. An' thet was it. I was in the store when I seen him go
into Turner's. So I followed. It was 'most dark. Beasley an' Riggs an'
Mulvey an' some more were drinkin' an' powwowin'. So I just braced him
right then.”
“Roy! Oh, the way you boys court danger!”
“But, Miss Helen, thet's the only way. To be afraid MAKES more danger.
Beasley 'peared civil enough first off. Him an' me kept edgin' off,
an' his pards kept edgin' after us, till we got over in a corner of the
saloon. I don't know all I said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told
him what my old man thought. An' Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old
man's not only the oldest inhabitant hereabouts, but he's the wisest,
too. An' he wouldn't tell a lie. Wal, I used all his sayin's in my
argument to show Beasley thet if he didn't haul up short he'd end almost
as short. Beasley's thick-headed, an' powerful conceited. Vain as a
peacock! He couldn't see, an' he got mad. I told him he was rich enough
without robbin' you of your ranch, an'--wal, I shore put up a big talk
for your side. By this time he an' his gang had me crowded in a corner,
an' from their looks I begun to get cold feet. But I was in it an' had
to make the best of it. The argument worked down to his pinnin' me to my
word that I'd fight for you when thet fight come off. An' I shore told
him for my own sake I wished it 'd come off quick.... Then--wal--then
somethin' did come off quick!”
“Roy, then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen, passionately.
“Now, Miss Helen, I didn't say who done it,” replied Roy, with his
engaging smile.
“Tell me, then--who did?”
“Wal, I reckon I sha'n't tell you unless you promise not to tell Las
Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks he knows who shot
me an' I've been lyin' somethin' scandalous. You see, if he learns--then
he'll go gunnin'. An', Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get
plugged as I did--an' there would be another man put off your side when
the big trouble comes.”
“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied Helen,
earnestly.
“Wal, then--it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he confessed this and
his voice, almost a whisper, expressed shame and hate. “Thet four-flush
did it. Shot me from behind Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn't even
see him draw. But when I fell an' lay there an' the others dropped back,
then I seen the smokin' gun in his hand. He looked powerful important.
An' Beasley began to cuss him an' was cussin' him as they all run out.”
“Oh, coward! the despicable coward!” cried Helen.
“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and deep. “I'll bet
he suspects Riggs.”
“Shore he does, but I wouldn't give him no satisfaction.”
“Roy, you know that Riggs can't last out here.”
“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”
“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill blood!” murmured
Helen, shudderingly.
“Dear Miss Helen, don't take on so. I'm like Dale--no man to hunt up
trouble. But out here there's a sort of unwritten law--an eye for an
eye--a tooth for a tooth. I believe in God Almighty, an' killin' is
against my religion, but Riggs shot me--the same as shootin' me in the
back.”
“Roy, I'm only a woman--I fear, faint-hearted and unequal to this West.”
“Wait till somethin' happens to you. 'Supposin' Beasley comes an' grabs
you with his own dirty big paws an', after maulin' you some, throws you
out of your home! Or supposin' Riggs chases you into a corner!”
Helen felt the start of all her physical being--a violent leap of blood.
But she could only judge of her looks from the grim smile of the wounded
man as he watched her with his keen, intent eyes.
“My friend, anythin' can happen,” he said. “But let's hope it won't be
the worst.”
He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at once, said
that she and Bo had better leave him then, but would come to see him the
next day. At her call Carmichael entered again with Mrs. Cass, and
after a few remarks the visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the
doorway.
“Wal, Cheer up, you old Mormon!” he called.
“Cheer up yourself, you cross old bachelor!” retorted Roy, quite
unnecessarily loud. “Can't you raise enough nerve to make up with Bo?”
Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred. He was quite
red in the face while he unhitched the team, and silent during the ride
up to the ranch-house. There he got down and followed the girls into the
sitting room. He appeared still somber, though not sullen, and had fully
regained his composure.
“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked, abruptly, of Helen.
“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen, nervously.
She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively fearing his
next query.
“Was it thet--Riggs?”
“Las Vegas, don't ask me. I will not break my promise.”
He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and presently, when
he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger, loftier, more impelling man,
with all his emotions under control.
“Bo, will you listen to me--if I swear to speak the truth--as I know
it?”
“Why, certainly,” replied Bo, with the color coming swiftly to her face.
“Roy doesn't want me to know because he wants to meet thet fellar
himself. An' I want to know because I want to stop him before he can do
more dirt to us or our friends. Thet's Roy's reason an' mine. An' I'm
askin' YOU to tell me.”
“But, Tom--I oughtn't,” replied Bo, haltingly.
“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”
“No.”
“Or your sister?”
“No. I didn't promise either.”
“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here matter. But
not because I love you an' once had a wild dream you might care a little
for me--”
“Oh--Tom!” faltered Bo.
“Listen. I want you to trust me because I'm the one who knows what's
best. I wouldn't lie an' I wouldn't say so if I didn't know shore. I
swear Dale will back me up. But he can't be here for some days. An' thet
gang has got to be bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you've been
quick in savvyin' Western ways. I couldn't pay you no higher compliment,
Bo Rayner.... Now will you tell me?”
“Yes, I will,” replied Bo, with the blaze leaping to her eyes.
“Oh, Bo--please don't--please don't. Wait!” implored Helen.
“Bo--it's between you an' me,” said Carmichael.
“Tom, I'll tell you,” whispered Bo. “It was a lowdown, cowardly
trick.... Roy was surrounded--and shot from behind Beasley--by that
four-flush Riggs!”