Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/60

 Bluntly the girl spoke out, "What's the matter?"

The cattleman lifted his eyebrows in amused surprise. "Why, nothing at all, I reckon. There's nothing the matter, is there, Chet?"

"I 've got an engagement to meet your father and he won't let me go," blurted out Fox.

"When did you make that hurry-up appointment, Chet?" laughed Dingwell. "You did n't seem in no manner of hurry when you was lying in the mesquite back there at Lonesome Park."

"You 've got no business to keep him here. He can go if he wants to," flashed the young woman.

"You hear that, Chet. You can go if you want to," murmured Dave with good-natured irony.

"Said he'd shoot me in the back if I hit the trail any faster," Fox snorted to the girl.

"He would n't dare," flamed Beulah Rutherford.

Her sultry eyes attacked Dingwell.

He smiled, not a whit disturbed. "You see how it is, Chet. Maybe I will; maybe I won't. Be a sport and you 'll find out."

For a minute the three rode in silence except for the sound of the horses moving. Beulah