"Kid," he ventured at last, turning over a broken fragment of rock
between his restless fingers, but without lifting his eyes, "you were
talking while we came up the trail about how we 'd do this and that
after a while. You don't suppose I 'm going to have any useless girl
like you hanging around on to me, do you?"
She glanced quickly about at him, as though such unexpected expressions
startled her from a pleasant reverie. "Why, I--I thought that was the
way you planned it yesterday," she exclaimed, doubtfully.
"Oh, yesterday! Well, you see, yesterday I was sort of dreaming;
to-day I am wide awake, and I 've about decided, Kid, that for your own
good, and my comfort, I 've got to shake you."
A sudden gleam of fierce resentment leaped into the dark eyes, the
unrestrained glow of a passion which had never known control. "Oh, you
have, have you, Mister Bob Hampton? You have about decided! Well, why
don't you altogether decide? I don't think I'm down on my knees
begging you for mercy. Good Lord! I reckon I can get along all right
without you--I did before. Just what happened to give you such a
change of heart?"
"I made the sudden discovery," he said, affecting a laziness he was
very far from feeling, "that you were too near being a young woman to
go traipsing around the country with me, living at shacks, and having
no company but gambling sharks, and that class of cattle."
"Oh, did you? What else?"
"Only that our tempers don't exactly seem to jibe, and the two of us
can't be bosses in the same ranch."
She looked at him contemptuously, swinging her body farther around on
the rock, and sitting stiffly, the color on her cheeks deepening
through the sunburn. "Now see here, Mister Bob Hampton, you're a
fraud, and you know it! Did n't I understand exactly who you was, and
what was your business? Did n't I know you was a gambler, and a 'bad
man'? Didn't I tell you plain enough out yonder,"--and her voice
faltered slightly,--"just what I thought about you? Good Lord! I have
n't been begging to stick with you, have I? I just didn't know which
way to turn, or who to turn to, after dad was killed, and you sorter
hung on to me, and I let it go the way I supposed you wanted it. But I
'm not particularly stuck on your style, let me tell you, and I reckon
there 's plenty of ways for me to get along. Only first, I propose to
understand what your little game is. You don't throw down your hand
like that without some reason."