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“He will recover—the doctor says,” she answered, and saw his eyes glitter. She wondered at the cold composure that would permit such a question when he must know that she knew of Paisley’s offense. She felt that she must have permitted something of the thought to show in her face, for she saw his eyes lighten, and he spoke immediately :

“I am sorry it happened. Some of my men say Gawne burst in upon them from the direction of the desert, chasing Paisley—and killing mad. He shot Paisley down right in front of the bunkhouse—and several of my men were inside. You can imagine what followed. My men thought, naturally, that Gawne was out for a clean-up, and they tried to accommodate him. That was my own thought, when I went out on the porch, after hearing the shooting. I tried, very hard, to shoot Gawne, but—was prevented. I didn’t know, until afterward—when the Diamond Bar men had taken Gawne away—what really had happened. Gawne hadn’t been thorough with Paisley, and Paisley, though seriously wounded, will recover. He told me what had happened, and the next time you see Gawne you may tell him that when Paisley recovers enough to travel he will leave the H-B.”

“Evidently neither you nor your men like Mr. Gawne,” she said, looking straight at him.

“No.” He met her gaze with a cold, steady smile.

“Why?”

“We are temperamentally—different,” he said, blandly. “I suppose none of us can tell exactly why we do not like certain persons—and yet we do dislike them. I have nothing to say against Gawne. Except,” and here his eyes gleamed under twitching lids and his teeth flashed in a grin of derisive amusement, “that when he departed from my house he carried off my housekeeper. Miss Le Claire.”

“Miss Le Claire went to the Diamond Bar of her own accord,” said Kathleen stiffly, resenting the significance of Bozzam’s amusement. “I am quite sure Mr. Gawne doesn’t want her!”

“Did you get that from Miss Le Claire?” His smile betrayed disbelief—sarcastic incredulity. It goaded Kathleen to a furious anger—which she tried to suppress.

“Mr. Gawne told me—this morning,” she said. And then, when she saw his smile broaden, she flushed hotly, for she knew, then, that his questions had been freighted with an ulterior purpose—he had wanted to discover the nature of her friendship with Gawne. By implication she had told him that it was deep enough to permit a discussion of Miss Le Claire. And while she stood, furious with indignation and embarrassment, meditating retreat, she saw that he did not intend to press the point, for he laughed carelessly.

“Well, love makes the world go ’round!” His voice was full, vibrant. She knew, in a sudden flash of comprehension, exactly the type of man he was—a winner of women, a conqueror who held success lightly.

He must have seen that knowledge flashing in her eyes, for his own met hers, held them, and gleamed into hers understandingly, with an intimate, subtle warmness that set her a-tingle with some breathless emotion. It was only when she heard her father coughing that she could withdraw her gaze from his, and then she felt the shame of the conflict and stood, not daring to retreat lest she advertise immistakably her knowledge of his meaning.

“You must not play favorites, Miss Harkless,” she heard Bozzam saying. “The H-B ranch is at the end of a beautiful ride—over the desert or through the basin; and you may be sure of my appreciation.” She felt him looking at her, but did not meet his gaze, and he laughed lowly: “The Colonel will be glad to come with you.”

She stole a glance at her father, noted a flush on his face, and, puzzled, she looked at Bozzam, at the instant he took one of her hands in his. His eyes were glowing with bold admiration and confidence; the grip of his hand on hers was warm and possessive. Once again she felt the subtle thrill of responsive passion; though she knew, now, that she feared this man; and a chill of portending evil sent a shudder through her.

And then with a laugh he had dropped her hand and was striding toward the black horse. She watched him mount and ride away; leaned against one of the porch posts and followed the progress of the dust cloud that enveloped him, until the cloud swept around a turn in the trail, far down the river. Then she looked at her father.

The Colonel’s face was pale; his eyes shifted furtively under her direct gaze.

“What kind of a man is Hame Bozzam, Father?”

“Bozzam’s all right, Kathie,” he returned, steeling himself against her intensely questioning eyes. “He’s a little impetuous, my dear—a little impetuous; full of fire and vigor. But he’s a fair dealer—he’s not a sneak.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Ever since I’ve been here. He was here when I came—he founded Bozzam City—built its first shanty.”

“I don’t like him.” She thought she saw the Colonel’s eyes flash, but she could not analyze the expression. “I wish you wouldn’t have anything to do with him. A man who will—live with a woman—like Blanche Le Claire—isn’t—”

“That’s malicious scandal, Kathie.” The flush on the Colonel’s face provoked the girl to swift speculation. Why should her father show embarrassment over such a discussion—with his daughter?

“Some folks around here don’t like Hame Bozzam, and they’ve lied about him. The Le Claire woman was his housekeeper, so far as I know. He took her out of—a place—in Bozzam City—to reform her. She’s been straight, since. I’ve always thought that move by Bozzam was at the bottom of the bad feeling between Gawne and Bozzam”.

“What do you mean?” The girl’s heart was cold with a dread divination.

“Why,” said the Colonel gruffly;” Gawne and the Le Claire woman were pretty thick before Hame Bozzam took her.”

Kathleen did not answer. Holding herself straight and stiff she walked past her father and into the house. A little later she was in her room, sitting on the side of the bed staring straight ahead of her. The figure of a man, sorely wounded, was in her vision; and she marked the honest, smiling look in his eyes when he said: “She isn’t my kind, Kathleen.” She shivered, and the lines of her lips grew straight.

Sitting rigid in a chair on the porch, the Colonel, too, was seeing a vision, or many of them. They were the fatal weaknesses of his character, and they marched before him in serried array, a never-ending multitude of them. They had blasted his life, but he had not the moral strength to defy them. The insidious fiber of cowardice which had made his youth a hideous period of fawning toadyism by which he had escaped physical clashes with his classmates, had grown and grown in size and strength until it was now stifling the last noble instinct that was left him—the paternal determination to protect his daughter from the social wolf-pack. Hame Bozzam lied about? Yes, Colonel Harkless had lied about Hame Bozzam. And to his daughter! He, too, shivered over his vision, and clenched his hands, groaning bitterly.

CHAPTER XV

STRAIGHT TALK

Gawne awoke the next morning, refreshed, to find the Las Vegas doctor standing near the side of the bed, smiling. There followed felicitations, more human than medical, out of which Gawne gathered that he had a marvelous constitution and remarkable recuperative powers. Then the doctor, who had been a virtual captive for two days at the Diamond Bar, walked to an outside door and motioned to someone.

Billings came in. His expression of anxiety faded to delight when he looked at Gawne.

“Feelin’ chipper, eh?” said the foreman. He smothered a grin as his gaze roved to the doctor.

The latter reddened. “I suppose your damned guardianship isn’t effective any longer?” he suggested.

“The’ ain’t no more danger?” Billings looked appraisingly at Gawne. “He’s goin’ to git well?”

The doctor sniffed disgustedly. “I warrant he’ll live to be a hundred!” He narrowed his eyes at Billings. “Would you really have carried out your threat?”

The foreman spoke slowly, his eyes were steady and unblinking as they met the doctor’s. “Four of the boys have been hangin’ around night an’ day since you bin here. They’ve had orders to salivate you if you tried to git away.”

The doctor paled. “Hell man; you don’t mean to say you’d have killed me? I don’t believe it! I never believed it!”

“You’ve uncommon faith,” drawled Billings. “If we ever need a doctor here again—which I ain’t hopin’ we will; why, we’ll be dead certain to send for you.”

The doctor’s face was purple. When he heard a cackle from Gawne, he glared at the invalid, muttered something about him being worse than his men, and that all were “damned pirates”, and clumped out, leaving Billings looking at his boss with a twisting, half-serious, imbecilic grin.

“Now ain’t that the most unreasonable man you ever seen?” demanded Billings. “Here we’ve herded him more careful than any hen ever herded day-old chickens—an’ he don’t appreciate it!”

“Go and tell him to come back here, I want to apologize to him!” ordered Gawne.

Billings stepped to the door, looked out, and turning, faced Gawne, gulping with some deep emotion.

“It’s no use. Boss; he’s a-fannin’ it right smart through the basin. He must be gone two miles, already. You see, Boss; he was wantin’ to git back to town, where he had a lot of patients needin’ his care, he said. An’ I had to speak right plain to him.”

“You’re a damned scoundrel, and your men are no better,” said Gawne. “I swear that one of these days I’ll fire the whole outfit! Now get out of here!”

Gawne propped himself up in bed, thus providing himself with a view of the Harkless trail. He was steadily peering into the blur of sun and heat half an hour later when Jane tip-toed into the room.

The girl was sobbingly repentant. She declared she “hated Sunshine Gap and would never go there again—never!” He comforted her, gently, and forgiveness and remorse were fellows in earnestness for some minutes.

“Kathie Harkless is coming over every day after this. Daddy,” she whispered, cuddling her face against Gawne’s. “She’s nice, isn’t she?”

Gawne drew the girl closer. “Isn’t she?” she insisted.

“Why, of course.”

The girl was quiet in his embrace for several seconds; he felt her eyelashes brush his cheek, and he waited, divining that she was considering some weighty problem.

“I’ve never had a mamma—a real mamma, that is—that I could look at, and love, and let hug me,” she said, slowly and wistfully. “I wish I had one. Aunt Emily might do. Only—only she’s too old—and she worries Uncle Lafe so. I’m afraid she’s got too many cares now, to want to be my mamma.” She drew back and looked at Gawne in frank inquiry. “Would it be too much trouble for you to marry Kathie Harkless and let her be my mamma?”

“Selfish,” he jibed. “You wouldn’t want me to marry her for that reason alone, would you?”

“That wouldn’t be the only reason. Daddy!” She flashed a meaning glance at him.

“Meaning what?” he demanded, coloring.

“Oh, shucks. Daddy—you are pretending. And you can’t pretend very well any more—since—since lately. You do like her—don’t you. Daddy? Say you do!” He felt her muscles tense and saw the anxiety in her eyes. He grinned widely and nodded affirmatively, and the next instant Jane was hugging him so tightly that a twinge of pain shot through his shoulder. But he endured it silently, gritting his teeth in joyous agony.

Jane was fussing about the room a little later when Blanche Le Claire came in. The girl made herself as inconspicuous as possible by huddling herself down in a chair. When Gawne looked at her a moment after Blanche Le Claire’s entrance, she was gazing meditatively out of a window. But he saw rebellion in her attitude—she would not have pretended complete ignorance of Kathleen Harkless’ presence.

Gawne heard her rise, presently, and he gravely marked her progress until he heard the door slam, very slightly, behind her. Then he slyly looked at Miss Le Claire to observe how she received the declaration of war. She was calmly rearranging a curtain at one of the windows, though her pose was too studied to deceive Gawne.

It was some minutes after Jane’s departure that Miss Le Claire left the window and walked toward the bed. She had made her toilet very carefully this morning; and a loose house dress of some white, striped material, high at the throat, with loose lines that merely suggested the lithe lines of her own figure, made her a homey vision that contrasted sharply with the blase and hardened wanton of Bozzam City. The startling reform in dress did not fool Gawne. Her pursuit of him in the past had been rather too apparent. She stood, watching him, and he noted that the color in her cheeks was not artificial.

Her garments, her attitude, the mute appeal in her eyes, advertised her motive in coming to the Diamond Bar, and though he was reluctant to reopen a subject that had always been distasteful to him, he knew that it was merely simple justice to the girl who had knelt at his bedside the day before.

He smiled gravely and pointed to a chair near the bed.

“Sit down,” he said; “and let’s have a talk with no kinks in it.”

That talk was made, and when it was ended Blanche Le Claire strode stiffly to the door through which Jane had vanished. Her eyes were red and her lips were quivering. Gawne had been as gentle as plain speech and pity would permit, and Blanche Le Claire felt little resentment for him. There was blame, though, and furious jealousy, in her heart for the direct-eyed girl who had made her long hoped-for conquest of Gawne impossible. She went immediately to her room. There she ripped off the simple house dress that she had donned for Gawne’s benefit, tore it to shreds, punctuating each muscular effort with profane invective.

Her fury subsided with the destruction of the dress. Pale with the straining reaction, she began, deliberately, to array herself in the bizarre garments of her kind—rougeing her cheeks and her lips until she was a grotesquely-colored horror whose trade was unmistakably advertised. She was artistic, though—the make-up genius of Thespis would have marveled—and applauded. And yet she did not intend to act; she was going to be the creature who had lived the part she intended to portray—which she was going to continue to live, now, more riotously than ever, since the one man had talked a talk “with no kinks in it”. More—going on with her own moral degradation—she intended to poison the soul of another—that of the girl whose virtue was a reproach to her.

CHAPTER XVI

SUBTLE POISON

Blanche Le Claire left the Diamond Bar ranch with no outward indication of hurt. Billings, noticing her, remarked to Happy McGonagle that she was “scrumptuous-lookin’, anyhow”, a phrase made descriptive by a significance left unsaid.

Blanche rode toward the Harkless ranch. Billings noted that with some puzzlement. “She’s sure headin’ off her range,” he assured himself. But his interest in women being negative, he dismissed her from his thoughts and trained his voice sarcastically upon Scriptus, that occupation being his chief diversion.

“When you grow to be a full-fledged novelist do you reckon you’ll be able to git a woman like Blanche Le Claire into it?” He mildly asked the past-aspiring author.