Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/198

 "Not that way, not bad in the way the other ones in Bonita are bad. Only she's blind over Dale Findlay, poor soul. I know her well, I often stop and see her when I go through Bonita to visit the post."

She seemed to have dropped the thread of her recital. Barrett waited a little while for her to take it up again, then reminded her.

"When Senator Nearing refused to interfere with their innocent diversion, you saddled and rode after them yourself."

"They were about a mile up the road when I started. But they never looked back, they knew there wasn't a man on this ranch that would follow them!"

She said this bitterly, the scorn that she could so well express in the mere modulation of a word, the lifting of a brow, the toss of her head, was wanting there. There was much of sadness, something of shame.

Barrett took her hand in the frankness of the understanding that had grown up between them. He held it in firm and sincere clasp while he looked into her eyes.

"Alma, I'd rather it was you that came than a regiment of cattlemen," he said.

She smiled, reached with her free hand and patted his, with the comforting, assuring caress of one much older and wiser than he.

"And then what?" he asked, holding very tightly to her hand.

"They rode off, and I snaked the wagon away from the door," she replied.

"And that was all?"

"That was all, Ed."