Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/220

 Crawling Stone Ranch? I thought that the finest thing I ever saw.”

“You were not to blame at Marion’s.”

“I seemed to be, which is just as bad. I am going to start the ‘phones going. It’s up to me to make good, you know, in about four hours with a lot of men and material. Aren’t you going to take off your hat?—and your gloves are soaking wet.”

McCloud took down the receiver, and Dicksie put her hands slowly to her head to unpin her hat. It was a broad hat of scarlet felt rolled high above her forehead, and an eagle’s quill caught in the black rosette swept across the front. As she stood in her clinging riding-skirt and her severely plain scarlet waist with only a black ascot falling over it, Whispering Smith looked at her. His eyes did not rest on the picture too long, but his glance was searching. He spoke in an aside to Marion. Marion laughed as she turned her head from where Dicksie was talking again with McCloud. “The best of it is,” murmured Marion, “she hasn’t a suspicion of how lovely she really is.” 196