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Now that it was safely concluded, Helen thought the adventure almost worthwhile for the spontaneous expressions of good will it had drawn forth from her adherents. Mrs. Winslow and Nora had taken her to their arms and wept and laughed over her in turn, and in their silent undemonstrative way she had felt herself hedged in by unusual solicitude on the part of her riders. It was good—none but she knew how good—to be back among her own, to bask in a friendliness she could not doubt. It was best of all to sit opposite Ned Bannister again with no weight on her heart from the consciousness of his unworthiness.

She could affect to disregard the gray eyes that followed her with such magnetized content about the living room, but beneath her cool self-containment she knew the joyous heart in her was strangely buoyant. He loved her, and she had a right to let herself love him. This was enough for the present.

“They're so plumb glad to see y'u they can't let y'u alone,” laughed Bannister at the sound of a knock on the door that was about the fifth in as many minutes.

This time it proved to be Nora, come to find out what her mistress would like for supper. Helen turned to the invalid.

“What would you like, Mr. Bannister?”

“I should like a porterhouse with mushrooms,” he announced promptly.

“You can't have it. You know what the doctor said.” Very peremptorily she smiled this at him.

“He's an old granny, Miss Messiter.”

“You may have an egg on toast.”

“Make it two,” he pleaded. “Excitement's just like caviar to the appetite, and seeing y'u safe—”

“Very well—two,” she conceded.

They ate supper together in a renewal of the pleasant intimacy so delightful to both. He lay on the lounge, propped up with sofa cushions, the while he watched her deft fingers butter the toast and prepare his egg. It was surely worth while to be a convalescent, given so sweet a comrade for a nurse; and after he had moved over to the table he enjoyed immensely the gay firmness with which she denied him what was not good for him.

“I'll bet y'u didn't have supper like this at Robbers' Roost.” he told her, enthusiastically.

“It wasn't so bad, considering everything.” She was looking directly at him as she spoke. “Your cousin is rather a remarkable man in some ways. He manages to live on the best that can be got in tin-can land.”

“Did he tell y'u he was my cousin?” he asked, slowly.

“Yes, and that his name was Ned Bannister, too?”

“Did that explain anything to y'u?”

“It explained a great deal, but it left some things not clear yet.”

“For instance?”

“For one thing, the reason why you should bear the odium of his crimes. I suppose you don't care for him, though I can see how you might in a way.”

“I don't care for him in the least, though I used to when we were boys. As to letting myself be blamed for his crimes. I did it because I couldn't help myself. We look more or less alike, and he was cunning enough to manufacture evidence against me. We were never seen together, and so very few know that there are two Bannisters. At first I used to protest, but I gave it up. There wasn't the least use. I could only wait for him to be captured or killed. In the meantime it didn't make me any more popular to be a sheepman.”

“Weren't you taking a long chance of being killed first? Some one with a grudge against him might have shot you.”

“They haven't yet,” he smiled.

“You might at least have told me how it was,” she reproached.

“I started to tell y'u that first day, but it looked so much of a fairy tale to unload that I passed it up.”

“Then you ought not to blame me for thinking you what you were not.”

“I don't remember blaming y'u. The fact is I thought it awful white of y'u to do your Christian duty so thorough, me being such a miscreant,” he drawled.

“You gave me no chance to think well of you.”

“But yet y'u did your duty from A to Z.”

“We're not talking about my duty,” she flashed back. “My point is that you weren't fair to me. If I thought ill of you how could I help it?”

“I expaict your Kalamazoo conscience is worryin' y'u because y'u misjudged me.”

“It isn't,” she denied instantly.

“I ain't of a revengeful disposition. I'll forgive y'u for doing your duty and saving my life twice,” he said, with a smile of whimsical irony.

“I don't want your forgiveness.”

“Well, then for thinking me a 'bad man.'”

“You ought to beg my pardon. I was a friend, at least you say I acted like one—and you didn't care enough to right yourself with me.”

“Maybe I cared too much to risk trying it. I knew there would be proof some time, and I decided to lie under the suspicion until I could get it. I see now that wasn't kind or fair to you. I am sorry I didn't tell y'u all about it. May I tell y'u the story now?”

“If you wish.”

It was a long story, but the main points can be told in a paragraph. The grandfather of the two cousins, General Edward Bannister, had worn the Confederate gray for four years, and had lost an arm in the service of the flag with the stars and bars. After the war he returned to his home in Virginia to find it in ruins, his slaves freed and his fields mortgaged. He had pulled himself together for another start, and had practiced law in the little town where his family had lived for generations. Of his two sons, one was a ne'er-do-well. He was one of those brilliant fellows of whom much is expected that never develops. He had a taste for low company, married beneath him, and, after a career that was a continual mortification and humiliation to his father, was killed in a drunken brawl under disgraceful circumstances, leaving behind a son named for the general. The second son of General Bannister also died young, but not before he had proved his devotion to his father by an exemplary life. He, too, was married and left an only son, also named for the old soldier. The boys were about of an age and were well matched in physical and mental equipment. But the general, who had taken them both to live with him, soon discovered that their characters were as dissimilar as the poles. One grandson was frank, generous, open as the light; the other was of a nature almost degenerate. In fact, each had inherited the qualities of his father. Tales began to come to the old general's ears that at first he refused to credit. But eventually it was made plain to him that one of the boys was a rake of the most objectionable type.

There were many stormy scenes between the general and his grandson, but the boy continued to go from bad to worse. After a peculiarly flagrant case, involving the character of a respectable young girl, young Ned Bannister was forbidden his ancestral home. It had been by means of his cousin that this last iniquity of his had been unearthed, and the boy had taken it to his grandfather in hot indignation as the last hope of protecting the reputation of the injured girl. From that hour the evil hatred of his cousin, always dormant in the heart, flamed into active heat. The disowned youth swore to be revenged. A short time later the general died, leaving what little property he had entirely to the one grandson. This stirred again the bitter rage of the other. He set fire to the house that had been willed his cousin, and took a train that night for Wyoming. By a strange irony of fate they met again in the West years later, and the enmity between them was renewed, growing every month more bitter on the part of the one who called himself the King of the Bighorn Country.

She broke the silence after his story with a gentle “Thank you. I can understand why you don't like to tell the story.”

“I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you,” he answered.

“When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called Ned not to break his mother's heart. I thought then you might be speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was your cousin that was on your mind.”

“When I was out of my head I must have talked a lot of nonsense,” he suggested, in the voice of a question. “I expect I had opinions I wouldn't have been scattering around so free if I'd known what I was saying.”

He was hardly prepared for the tide of color that swept her cheeks at his words nor for the momentary confusion that shuttered the shy eyes with long lashes cast down.

“Sick folks do talk foolishness, they say,” he added, his gaze trained on her suspiciously.

“Do they?”

“Mrs. Winslow says I did. But when I asked her what it was I said she only laughed and told me to ask y'u. Well, I'm askin' now.”

She became very busy over the teapot. “You talked about the work at your ranch—sheep dipping and such things.”

“Was that all?”

“No, about lots of other things—football and your early life. I don't see what Mrs. Winslow meant. Will you have some more tea?”

“No, thank y'u. I have finished. Yes, that ce'tainly seems harmless. I didn't know but I had been telling secrets.” Still his unwavering eyes rested quietly on her.

“Secrets?” She summoned her aplomb to let a question rest lightly in the face she turned toward him, though she was afraid she met his eyes hardly long enough for complete innocence “Why, yes, secrets.” He measured looks with her deliberately before he changed the subject, and he knew again the delightful excitement of victory. “Are y'u going to read to me this evening?”

She took his opening so eagerly that he smiled, at which her color mounted again.

“If y'u like. What shall I read?”

“Some more of Barrie's books, if y'u don't mind. When a fellow is weak as a kitten he sorter takes to things that are about kids.”

Nora came in and cleared away the supper things. She was just beginning to wash them when McWilliams and Denver dropped into the kitchen by different doors. Each seemed surprised and disappointed at the presence of the other. Nora gave each of them a smile and a dishcloth.

“Reddy, he's shavin' and Frisco's struggling with a biled shirt—I mean with a necktie,” Denver hastily amended. “They'll be along right soon, I shouldn't wonder.”

“Y'u better go tell the boys Miss Nora don't want her kitchen littered up with so many of them,” suggested his rival.

“Y'u're foreman here. I don't aim to butt into your business, Mac,” grinned back the other, polishing a tea plate with the towel.

“I want to get some table linen over to Lee Ming to-night,” said Nora, presently.

“Denver, he'll be glad to take it for y'u, Miss Nora. He's real obliging,” offered Mac, generously.

“I've been in the house all day, so I need a walk. I thought perhaps one of you gentlemen—” Miss Nora looked from one to the other of them with deep innocence.

“Sure, I'll go along and carry it. Just as Mac says, I'll be real pleased to go,” said Denver, hastily.

Mac felt he had been a trifle precipitate in his assumption that Nora did not intend to go herself. Lee Ming had established a laundry some half mile from the ranch, and the way thereto lay through most picturesque shadow and moonlight. The foreman had conscientious scruples against letting Denver escort her down such a veritable lovers' lane of romantic scenery.

“I don't know as y'u ought to go out in the night air with that cold, Denver. I'd hate a heap to have y'u catch pneumony. It don't seem to me I'd be justified in allowin' y'u to,” said the foreman, anxiously.

“You're THAT thoughtful, Mac. But I expect mebbe a little saunter with Miss Nora will do my throat good. We'll walk real slow, so's not to wear out my strength.”

“Big, husky fellows like y'u are awful likely to drop off with pneumony. I been thinkin' I got some awful good medicine that would be the right stuff for y'u. It's in the drawer of my wash-stand. Help yourself liberal and it will surely do y'u good. Y'u'll find it in a bottle.”

“I'll bet it's good medicine, Mac. After we get home I'll drop around. In the washstand, y'u said?”

“I hate to have y'u take such a risk,” Mac tried again. “There ain't a bit of use in y'u exposing yourself so careless. Y'u take a hot footbath and some of that medicine, Denver, then go right straight to bed, and in the mo'ning y'u'll be good as new. Honest, y'u won't know yourself.”

“Y'u got the best heart, Mac.” Nora giggled.

“Since I'm foreman I got to be a mother to y'u boys, ain't I?”

“Y'u're liable to be a grandmother to us if y'u keep on,” came back the young giant.

“Y'u plumb discourage me, Denver,” sighed the foreman.

“No, sir! The way I look at it, a fellow's got to take some risk. Now, y'u cayn't tell some things. I figure I ain't half so likely to catch pneumony as y'u would be to get heart trouble if y'u went walking with Miss Nora,” returned Denver.

A perfect gravity sat on both their faces during the progress of most of their repartee.

“If your throat's so bad, Mr. Halliday, I'll put a kerosene rag round it for you when we get back,” Nora said, with a sweet little glance of sympathy that the foreman did not enjoy.

Denver, otherwise “Mr. Halliday,” beamed. “Y'u're real kind, ma'am. I'll bet that will help it on the outside much as Mac's medicine will inside.”

“What'll y'u do for my heart, ma'am, if it gits bad the way Denver figures it will?”

“Y'u might try a mustard plaster,” she gurgled, with laughter.

For once the debonair foreman's ready tongue had brought him to defeat. He was about to retire from the field temporarily when Nora herself offered first aid to the wounded.

“We would like to have you come along with us, Mr. McWilliams. I want you to come if you can spare the time.”

The soft eyes telegraphed an invitation with such a subtle suggestion of a private understanding that Mac was instantly encouraged to accept.

He knew, of course, that she was playing them against each other and sitting back to enjoy the result, but he was possessed of the hope common to youths in his case that he really was on a better footing with her than the other boys. This opinion, it may be added, was shared by Denver, Frisco and even Reddy as regards themselves. Which is merely another way of putting the regrettable fact that this very charming young woman was given to coquetting with the hearts of her admirers.

“Any time y'u get oneasy about that cough y'u go right on home, Denver. Don't stay jest out of politeness. We'll never miss y'u, anyhow,” the foreman assured him.

“Thank y'u, Mac. But y'u see I got to stay to keep Miss Nora from getting bored.”

“Was it a phrenologist strung y'u with the notion y'u was a cure for lonesomeness?”

“Shucks! I don't make no such claims. The only thing is it's a comfort when you're bored to have company. Miss Nora, she's so polite. But, y'u see, if I'm along I can take y'u for a walk when y'u get too bad.”

They reached the little trail that ran up to Lee Ming's place, and Denver suggested that Mac run in with the bundle so as to save Nora the climb.

“I'd like to, honest I would. But since y'u thought of it first I won't steal the credit of doing Miss Nora a good turn. We'll wait right here for y'u till y'u come back.”

“We'll all go up together,” decided Nora, and honors were easy.

In the pleasant moonlight they sauntered back, two of them still engaged in lively badinage, while the third played chorus with appreciative little giggles and murmurs of “Oh, Mr. Halliday!” and “You know you're just flattering me, Mr. McWilliams.”

If they had not been so absorbed in their gay foolishness the two men might not have walked so innocently into the trap waiting for them at their journey's end. As it was, the first intimation they had of anything unusual was a stern command to surrender.

“Throw up your hands. Quick, you blank fools!”

A masked man covered them, in each hand a six-shooter, and at his summons the arms of the cow-punchers went instantly into the air.

Nora gave an involuntary little scream of dismay.

“Y'u don't need to be afraid, lady. Ain't nobody going to hurt you, I reckon,” the masked man growled.

“Sure they won't,” Mac reassured her, adding ironically: “This gun-play business is just neighborly frolic. Liable to happen any day in Wyoming.”

A second masked man stepped up. He, too was garnished with an arsenal.

“What's all this talking about?” he demanded sharply.

“We just been having a little conversation seh?” returned McWilliams, gently, his vigilant eyes searching through the disguise of the other “Just been telling the lady that your call is in friendly spirit. No objections, I suppose?”

The swarthy newcomer, who seemed to be in command, swore sourly.

“Y'u put a knot in your tongue, Mr. Foreman.”

“Ce'tainly, if y'u prefer,” returned the indomitable McWilliams.

“Shut up or I'll pump lead into you!”

“I'm padlocked, seh.”

Nora Darling interrupted the dialogue by quietly fainting. The foreman caught her as she fell.

“See what y'u done, y'u blamed chump!” he snapped.