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"I reckon he's in for quite a siesta." "We can't very well leave him there." Thode spoke reflectively. "Last time, he had a buckboard and I dumped him back into it. The team took him home, all right, but you can't very well expect that of a motor." Billie eyed him curiously. "But you've only just come, and he hasn't driven any team around here." "We've met before."
Men are a good deal like pintos; some you can coax and some you can bully, but they all of 'em buck at the first gate. Don't you worry your head about Mr. Kearn Thode, honey; wait till the next round-up, and you'll have him roped, tied, and branded before he knows where he's at." Billie mounted three steps and halted, her head held high. "Him?" she queried with infinite scorn. "I don't want him!
Thode tried to warn Mr. North through his son not to go into it, but unfortunately for him, Mr. North would not heed, and he and Mr. Halstead invested heavily. I say 'unfortunately, for the money is lost! Gentlemen, Juana Reyes and I still own that property.
"Finest place in the country; square as a die and the sky's the limit to a regular hombre. Gentleman Geoff's just about one hundred per cent. man, and don't you forget it. Everything's on the level at his place." "Got a daughter, hasn't he?" Thode asked, proffering a cigar. "You're on. Fine gal, too. Ain't afraid of nothing, Billie ain't.
The sun was well upon its western course when he reined in at a low stout gateway. A peon, lazily hoeing in the ditch, straightened his bent back and eyed the stranger in mild curiosity. "This Hallock's ranch?" Thode asked, laconically. The peon nodded and waved a brown hand toward the house half hidden among the trees. "Señor Hallo', si, Señor."
He shot across the road, crumpled into the ditch and lay quivering and still, as his victim of the day before. Panting, Thode turned to the girl. "I am sorry," he said stiffly. "I didn't mean to butt in on your game, but, having started, I had to finish." She seemed not to have heard. Her eyes were shining and a little spot of clear rose showed in her cheeks as she held out her hand.
"When I settled up my affairs out West, I wired Dan, and he brought Tia Juana and José down to Victoria to meet me. There I found Mr. Thode again.
Other shouts arose above the distant crash of the battering-ram; other figures advanced, and in the patter of stray shots a horse screamed and fell kicking among his terrorized fellows, but Thode had twitched free the knot which haltered his mount and was off and away up the narrow street, in a thunder of hoof-beats which outran the fusillade and pounded steadily on into the silence of the coming dawn.
"I don't think there are any bones broken," Thode announced at last. "But he's had a pretty bad shaking up for a cripple and that is rather a nasty cut on his head. Can you find anything clean to tie it up with?" Without reply the girl stooped, turned back her short khaki skirt and tore a wide strip from a snowy petticoat.
Had he but known it, he was destined not to keep his promise of the morrow, and once more it was Starr Wiley who intervened. It happened that Thode stopped in at the club after taking leave of the Erskines, and arrived at a most opportune moment.
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