Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/284

 mush! Well, you've done it now, you've fixed yourself with her for good. I don't blame her, you keepin' that girl down there at the hotel under false pretenses—"

"I'm not keeping her, sir! She's payin' her way; I ain't got—"

"In your room, under pretext she's a man!"

"No such a thing, sir, Uncle Boley, sir!"

Texas was so vehement in his denial that he was almost wild. He swung his long arms, and slammed his hat down on the counter as if stripping himself to fight.

"Well, maybe not in the same room, but it looks just as bad to Sallie."

"She'll think I brought her up here to parade before her face!"

"Yes, and worse than that. No man can imagine the things a woman can think when she believes somebody else has crowded her out of his heart."

"There's not room even for a ghost to come in there beside Miss Sallie edgeways, Uncle Boley."

"You'll have a gay old time makin' her believe you."

"I'll never have even the show of doin' it!"

"What'd that darned Fannie want to go puttin' on britches for and paradin' herself around?"

"Uncle Boley, she wouldn't dare to show her face in this town in her own clothes. Stott thinks he