Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/47

 seven dollars to one she can't come in half a minute of you."

"I hope you didn't bet any money on me," she said, a bit reproachfully.

Yes, the other one was handsome, with a disdainful, haughty lift to her white chin, thought Texas, but this one was good. A man could look right down into her eyes, he'd bet, and see the bottom of her soul all white like pebbles in a spring.

"Didn't we?" Winch wanted to know, with a large discount in his tone. It was as much as if he had asked her how any gentleman could stand aside with money in his pocket and fail to hazard it in the honor of his community, and the heart and jewel of that community, and hope to hold his head up in the eyes of men again. It was a feeling in which Texas shared, and warmed with the generosity of it, his heart applauding the little bow-legged man.

Miss Sallie smiled down to Mr. Winch. Appreciation honestly bestowed, thought Texas. There was not the girl to go about throwing smiles away as if they were trifles to be had for the looking. A man might well leap to catch a smile like that, and put it away in his heart to keep, like a rare poem that has moved his soul.

Mr. Winch did not appear to suspend his breathing on account of it. Texas wondered why. On