No man could cow Steve. But he stammered before the child-eyed thing in the print frock.
“I—I couldn’t tell it yer, my girlie. There’s lots o’ ways a chap has. . . . Looky here, Maiden: if yer’ll lump him inter yer prayers wi’ Art Scannell an’ Jimmie Blaine, I don’t mind.”
“And with you?”
Steve looked over the peaceful graves to the flood of sunlight down the peaceful gully, and the half-crescent of the township at end of it.
“If yer like—so long as you remembers me anyways, my girlie,” he said.
Fifteen miles off Randal was not exactly praying over Art Scannell. He stood in the hut door-way with Murray, and Murray frowned with bitten lips.
“He’s weak as a baby,” said Randal. “He needs home and bed, and feeding up. What are you going to do about it? Well?”
“Bring up a trap from the township and drive him home, I suppose. You can ride that black devil of his. But if ever I wanted to put the handcuffs on a man—and he’ll do more harm yet. It shakes a fellow’s belief—look out. He’s waking.”
But it was two days before Murray brought Art Scannell home. Randal rode in at the
