Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/44

28 "Yes, Miss Corliss. And he … perhaps you heard him? … he just laughed."

The eyes of a thwarted Corliss were not pleasant to look into.

"He said nothing?"

"I repeated your words. To make certain he had understood. Then he said …"

"Well?" cried the girl impatiently.

"He said," stammered Bradford, "'Go chase yourself, old party. I'm no rattlesnake. Besides, I want a talk with … with …"

Bradford mired down, floundered, grew silent. But, in a moment under the compelling eyes of his mistress he continued hurriedly, tone and manner alike apologetic:

"With Trixie before he went! He called you … Trixie!"

The frown upon the girl's brows was one now of sheer perplexity. She dismissed Bradford with a gesture, suddenly aware that the situation was rapidly becoming absurd … ridiculous. Steele's crime was not one which would warrant his being bundled off, under armed escort, to jail. To put a man off of a thirty-thousand-acre ranch has its difficulties, especially when that man is of the William Steele type; it is quite another matter than having one's servants thrust him down the front steps into a city street and lock the door against his return. She could send for Booth Stanton, she could have a couple of cowboys take Steele into their custody and ride with him to her boundary line, half a dozen miles across the mountains.