horror, she felt his hot lips bruising her own, and then, as her body went limp in his grasp, he flung her from him so violently that she staggered and fell. For some seconds he stood over her, his hands clenched convulsively, battling with the desire which turned his blood to liquid fire. Then he laughed again, contentedly.
'That'll do--for now,' he told her. His hand went to his face, wiping away a little smear of red. 'Yu ain't begun to pay for that yet, but yu will; no man or woman ever struck King Burdette an' got away with it.'
He went out, and she heard the key turn in the lock. Then despair claimed her and for long she lay sobbing on the floor.
It made a charming picture, the shadowy dell with its green carpet gaily spangled with flowers and slashed with golden light where the sunbeams penetrated the leafy branches overhead; the saddled pony, reins trailing, contentedly nibbling the grass, and the seated girl, arranging a lap-full of blossoms and crooning an old Mexican love-song. It was her voice that had drawn the C P foreman from the trail, and for a little he sat watching her, before riding forward. Not until he reached her did she look up, and then she was prettily surprised.
'Why, it ees my so brave deliverer of distressed damsels,' she cried. 'But thees time, senor, my pony no run away.'
The puncher grinned. 'Yu look a heap younger out here, but that ain't no reason for the baby-talk,' he said.
'But, how ungallant,' she reproached, 'to accuse a lady of speaking childishly. Senor, I thought better of you.'
'It's somethin' that yu thought of me a-tall,' he retorted, and brought a tinge of colour into her softly-brown cheeks. 'Yu have some right pretty blooms there.'
'I love flowers,' she said. 'I think they're so--pure.' She held up a Spanish bayonet, with its sheaf of creamy, waxen blossoms. 'Doesn't look dangerous, does it? Yet see what I got when I gathered it.' She pointed to a scratch on her slender wrist.
'I reckon every livin' thing has to fight some way orother for existence,' Sudden smiled. 'An' Nature provides the weapons accordin'. Roses has thorns, cats has claws'
'And poor woman?' she queried.
'Has a tongue--an' it's a-plenty,' he finished.
She stood up, letting the flowers fall, and regarded him in mock displeasure. 'I don't think you are a bit nice,' she decided. 'As a punishment I shall inflict my company on you for a while.'
Before he could get down to help her she was in the saddle, moving with a swift, easy grace, and sat there smiling.
'Li'l Miss Tenderfoot is shore learnin',' she said, copying his own slow drawl, and set her pony moving.
'Shore is,' he agreed, and swung Nigger beside her.
Silence held them for a time, the girl covertly studying this long, supple young man with the spare, bronzed face and smiling eyes which, on occasion, could become ice-cold and deadly in menace. She admired the careless confidence with which he sat his mount, reins hanging loosely, the slightest pressure of a knee seeming sufficient to guide the animal. His eyes too were busy. She rode well, her body swaying in rhythm with her pony's movements. She caught one of his admiring glances, and again the red blood stained her cheeks. She spoke hastily:
'I hope you haven't been swimming again?'
The corners of his mouth puckered up. 'I'm game to try anythin' once, but I ain't a hawg,' he replied. 'As a bathin'-pool the Sluice is certainly over-rated.'
'I went to see it--a horrible place,' she said, and shivered. 'I can't understand how you ever got out.'
'I had a good friend,' Sudden said simply.
'Yes, Mister Yago, wasn't it? I think it was fine of him. Some men would have left you there in the hope of getting your job.'
'Bill can have that, or anythin' else I got--there's no limit,' was the calm reply.
She knew he meant exactly that; his life even was included in the sweeping statement; it was no mere figure of speech. Though the words were spoken casually there was an under-current of feeling which carried conviction.
'Yet you haven't known him long,' she mused.
He shot a sharp look at her, wondering if there was anything behind the remark. 'Yu don't have to,' was his noncommittal reply.
Again the conversation halted. She was considering him, curious to know something of his past. The long stirrup-leathers, which left the rider nearly standing, told of California, while the braided rawhide lariat and heavy Visaliatree'd, single-cinch saddle spoke eloquently of Texas. He talked like a Texan too, but there were times when his voice dropped to a low, indolent drawl, reminding her of a man from Virginia whom she had known. Impatiently she shook her head; she could not place him. Watching her eyes, he had divined what was in her mind.
'I was raised in Texas an' used to ride 'Pache fashion, knees up,' he offered. 'I reckon this is more comfortable.'
Mrs. Lavigne put a blunt question. 'What brought you here?'
'A restless nature an' this black lump of iniquity I'm a-top of,' he answered lightly, patting the neck of his mount.
She saw that he was not to be drawn, but she tried again.
'The handsome stranger falls in love with his employer's daughter, rescues her from deadly peril, marries her and lives happy ever after,' she bantered.
The picture drew unrestrained merriment from her companion. 'This ain't no dime novel,' he pointed out. 'The lady ain't liable to be in deadly peril, an' her affections unless I'm mistook--is already corralled. As for the 'handsome stranger' '--he grinned joyously as he repeated the phrase--'he's got a job that'll keep him driftin' mebbe for years.' The mirth died out, his face grew hard as granite, and his next words were spoken more to himself than to her, 'I gotta find two men before I think of--one woman.'
In that single flash the girl saw a phase of him she had not suspected--the careless, good-humoured cowboy had suddenly become a grim, relentless instrument of vengeance. There was death in the chilled gaze--death for those two men. She could not repress a shudder. The sardonic voice of the puncher recalled her straying thoughts.
'Shucks, I'm talkin' like a dime novel my own self,' he reproved, and then, 'What's been happenin' here?'
They were passing through the glade which had been the scene of Nan's capture, and the foreman's keen eyes had at once noted the hoof-torn, trampled grass near the prostrate tree. He slid from his saddle to examine the marks more closely, but they told him nothing save that a struggle had taken place. Then he picked up a crumpled scrap of paper--the note the girl had received, which had fallen unnoticed from her hand when she had been overpowered --and read it with knitted brow. In the bushes at the back of the fallen tree he found traces of waiting riders. Lu Lavigne watched him wonderingly, but asked no question, thereby raising herself in his estimation.
'Somethin' queer 'bout this,' he remarked, as he mounted again. 'I'll have to see Purdie right away. Do yu reckon yu can find yore way back?'
She looked at him, and the dark eyes were a shade reproachful. 'You don't trust anyone overmuch, do you?' she said.
'This ain't my business,' he evaded. 'I'm real distressed I can't see yu on yore way.'
And since he very evidently meant it, she smiled and again mimicked his own speech. 'Li'l Miss Tenderfoot can take care o' herself, I reckon, partner,' she said.
With a wave of her hand, she whirled her pony and trotted down the trail. His gaze followed the trim form until it vanished amid the trees.
'Partner,' he mused. 'Yu'd shore make a staunch one too.' And then, 'Hell, I'm gettin' soft in the head. Shake a bit o' life into them legs o' your'n, Nig; we got no time for dreamin'.'
He reached the ranch-house only to find that Purdie was out on the range. An inquiry for Nan elicited the fact that she had gone out early for her morning ride and had not returned for the mid-day meal; the cook, who supplied the information, had to admit that this was unusual.
'She mighta gone to town,' the foreman suggested, but the kitchen autocrat negatived the notion; on such occasions she always asked if supplies were needed. All the same, Sudden sent Curly to Windy, and sat down to
