第79章 CHAPTER XVII(5)

"I won't," declared Bo Rayner. Her face shone whiter now and her eyes were like fiery flint. That was her answer to a loving, gentle-hearted sister; that was her answer to the call of the West.

"No use," said Roy, quietly. "An' I reckon I'd better trail him up."He, too, strode out and, mounting his horse, galloped swiftly away.

It turned out that Bo, was more bruised and scraped and shaken than she had imagined. One knee was rather badly cut, which injury alone would have kept her from riding again very soon. Helen, who was somewhat skilled at bandaging wounds, worried a great deal over these sundry blotches on Bo's fair skin, and it took considerable time to wash and dress them. Long after this was done, and during the early supper, and afterward, Bo's excitement remained unabated.

The whiteness stayed on her face and the blaze in her eyes.

Helen ordered and begged her to go to bed, for the fact was Bo could not stand up and her hands shook.

"Go to bed? Not much," she said. "I want to know what he does to Riggs."It was that possibility which had Helen in dreadful suspense. If Carmichael killed Riggs, it seemed to Helen that the bottom would drop out of this structure of Western life she had begun to build so earnestly and fearfully. She did not believe that he would do so. But the uncertainty was torturing.

"Dear Bo," appealed Helen, "you don't want -- Oh! you do want Carmichael to -- to kill Riggs?""No, I don't, but I wouldn't care if he did," replied Bo, bluntly.

"Do you think -- he will?"

"Nell, if that cowboy really loves me he read my mind right here before he left," declared Bo. "And he knew what Ithought he'd do."

"And what's -- that?" faltered Helen.

"I want him to round Riggs up down in the village --somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, slapped, kicked -- driven out of Pine!"Her passionate speech still rang throughout the room when there came footsteps on the porch. Helen hurried to raise the bar from the door and open it just as a tap sounded on the door-post. Roy's face stood white out of the darkness.

His eyes were bright. And his smile made Helen's fearful query needless.

"How are you-all this evenin'?" he drawled, as he came in.

A fire blazed on the hearth and a lamp burned on the table.

By their light Bo looked white and eager-eyed as she reclined in the big arm-chair.

"What 'd he do?" she asked, with all her amazing force.

"Wal, now, ain't you goin' to tell me how you are?""Roy, I'm all bunged up. I ought to be in bed, but I just couldn't sleep till I hear what Las Vegas did. I'd forgive anything except him getting drunk.""Wal, I shore can ease your mind on thet," replied Roy. "He never drank a drop."Roy was distractingly slow about beginning the tale any child could have guessed he was eager to tell. For once the hard, intent quietness, the soul of labor, pain, and endurance so plain in his face was softened by pleasurable emotion. He poked at the burning logs with the toe of his boot. Helen observed that he had changed his boots and now wore no spurs. Then he had gone to his quarters after whatever had happened down in Pine.

"Where IS he?" asked Bo.

"Who? Riggs? Wal, I don't know. But I reckon he's somewhere out in the woods nursin' himself.""Not Riggs. First tell me where HE is."

"Shore, then, you must mean Las Vegas. I just left him down at the cabin. He was gettin' ready for bed, early as it is.

All tired out he was an' thet white you wouldn't have knowed him. But he looked happy at thet, an' the last words he said, more to himself than to me, I reckon, was, 'I'm some locoed gent, but if she doesn't call me Tom now she's no good!"'

Bo actually clapped her hands, notwithstanding that one of them was bandaged.

"Call him Tom? I should smile I will," she declared, in delight. "Hurry now -- what 'd --""It's shore powerful strange how he hates thet handle Las Vegas," went on Roy, imperturbably.

"Roy, tell me what he did -- what TOM did -- or I'll scream," cried Bo.

"Miss Helen, did you ever see the likes of thet girl?" asked Roy, appealing to Helen.