United States or Hong Kong ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The fool must have been drunk." "You'll have to excuse him. It was beginning to get dark. His intentions were good." There was a quick light step behind him, and Arlie came into the room. She glanced quickly from one to the other, and there was apprehension in her look. "I've come to see Lieutenant Fraser on business," Briscoe explained, with an air patently triumphant.
I want to tell you something." They sauntered toward the fine grove of pines that ran up the hillside back of the house. "Did you notice that man with the scar, Dick?" she presently asked. "Yes. I ain't seen him before. Must be one of the Rabbit Run guys, I take it." "I've seen him. He's the man that shot your friend. He was the man I shot at when he looked in the window," "Sure, Arlie?"
"Is that scar on your hand where he shot you?" Arlie asked. He looked up in quick surprise. "Now, how did you know that?" "You were talking of the trouble he made and you looked at your hand," she explained. "Where is he now? In the penitentiary?" "No. He broke away before I got him there." She had another flash of inspiration. "And you came to Wyoming to get him again."
She was not looking at him, but out of the window, and there were tears in her voice. "Sho! Don't make too much of it. We'll let it go that I ain't all coyote, after all. But that don't entitle me to any reward of merit. Now, don't you cry, Miss Arlie. Don't you." She choked back the tears, and spoke in deep self-scorn. "No!
"Little Willie told a lie, and he's being stood in a corner." Arlie flushed angrily, opened her mouth to speak, and, changing her mind, looked at him witheringly. He didn't wither, however. Instead, he smiled broadly, got out his mouth organ, and cheerfully entertained them with his favorite, "I Met My Love In the Alamo." The hot blood under dusky skin held its own in her cheeks.
Miss Dillon pounced eagerly upon the Gimlet Butte Avalanche, and disappeared with it to her bedroom. She had formerly lived in Gimlet Butte, and was still keenly interested in the gossip of the town. Briscoe had scored one against Arlie by meeting her father, telling his side of the story, and returning with him to the house.
He knew how to make light love by implication, to skate around the subject skilfully and boldly with innuendo and suggestion. Arlie knew him for what he was a man passionate and revengeful, the leader of that side of the valley's life which she deplored. She did not trust him. Nevertheless, she felt his fascination.
"Why, I reckon it must have been just before I ducked." "That's funny, too." She fixed her direct, fearless gaze on him. "The evidence at the coroner's jury shows that it was in the early part of the fight he was shot, before father and I left you." "No, that couldn't have been, Miss Arlie, because " "Because " she prompted, smiling at him in a peculiar manner.
We'll soon be asking him whether we can stay here," said Arlie, with a scornful laugh. "And I say it is proved. We met the deputies the yon side of the big cañon." Briscoe looked at her out of dogged, half-shuttered eyes. He said nothing, but he looked the picture of malice. Dillon rasped his stubbly chin and looked at the Texan. Far from an alert-minded man, he came to conclusions slowly.
Arlie found she could manage a little laugh by this time. "Well, if you ain't going to, we might as well go in and have a look at that false-alarm patient of ours," he continued. "We'll have to sit up all night with him. I was sixty-three yesterday. I'm going to quit this doctor game. I'm too old to go racing round the country nights just because you young folks enjoy shooting each other up.
Word Of The Day