The Golden Woman

"I said I was busy," she cried deliberately. "Surely that should be sufficient."

But the man had no intention of accepting his dismissal.

"It jest depends wot a feller's come around for," he said, no whit disconcerted. "Mebbe you won't find you're busy when you heard what I got to say." He laughed immoderately. Beasley's whisky was at work, and he had no fear for the purpose in hand.

Suddenly he dived a hand into his hip-pocket and drew out the bills the saloon-keeper had paid him.

"Look at them," he cried in a voice that was high-pitched with elation. "Ther's dollars an' dollars ther', but 'tain't nuthin' to wot's to come. Say, I got another cache o' gold waitin' back ther' at my shack, but I ain't handin' it to Beasley," he went on cunningly. "Oh, no, not me! I'm a business guy, I am. I hold that up, an' all the rest I git from my patch, an' I'm goin' to cash it in Leeson Butte, at the bank, fer a proper exchange. See? Oh, I ain't no sucker, I ain't. An' a feller needs a heap o' dollars, treatin' his gal right."

Joan hardly knew how to deal with such a situation. Besides, the now obvious condition of the man alarmed her. However, he gave her no opportunity to reply. For, delighted with his own talk, he went on promptly-"Now I tho't a whole heap since I got this wad. A wad like this takes you thinkin', that is, ef you ain't a low-down rattle-brain like Pete, or a psalm-smitin' son-of-a-moose like that feller, Buck. Course they ain't got no sort o' savvee, anyways, so they don't count nuthin'. But wi' a feller like me things is diff'rent. Now, this is what I got fixed. Y' see you can't have no sort of a time in this yer camp, but it's diff'rent in Leeson Butte. Guess we'll get a buggy from the camp an' drive into Leeson. Ther's dance halls ther', an' they run a decent faro joint at a place I know. An' they sell elegant rye, too. Wal, we'll git that buggy, an' git fixed up reg'lar in Leeson, an' have a bully time, an' git right back to here an' run this yer farm between us. How's that?"

"I--I don't think I understand."

Joan's alarm grew. This man was deliberately proposing to marry her. Supported by the nerve his half-drunken condition inspired, his senses were so inflamed that he took the whole matter for granted. She looked into his sensual young face, the hard eyes, and at the loose lips that surrounded his unclean teeth, and something like panic seized her. However, she knew she must not show her fear.