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Updated: June 25, 2025
But when he turned to Aunt Martha, in the kitchen, his eyes were alight with well simulated curiosity. "Well?" he said, questioningly. "It is most outrageous," began Aunt Martha, her voice trembling. "That man, Pickett, came upon Ruth in the stable and abused her shamefully. He actually kissed her three or four times and Why, Mr. Masten, the prints of his fingers are on her wrists!"
That vision had vanished now, and she did not care how soon she became Masten's wife. On the porch of the ranchhouse they had reached the agreement, and triumphantly Masten rode away into the darkness, foreseeing the defeat of the man whom he had feared as a possible rival, seeing, too if he could not remove him entirely his dismissal from the Flying W and his own ascent to power.
While Ruth and her relatives had been inspecting one of the upstairs rooms, she had heard the men bringing the baggage in, had heard them clumping up the stairs and setting the trunks down. Then they went out, and a little later, peering from one of the windows upstairs, Ruth had seen Masten and the other two walking toward the stable.
They all can't be like you, back East; if they was, the East would go to hell plenty rapid. Get off your horse!" Masten demurred, and Randerson's big pistol leaped into his hand. His voice came at the same instant, intense and vibrant: "It don't make no difference to me how you get off!"
He grew very vivid in her thoughts, and she found herself wondering, remembering the stern manliness of his face, whether he, listening to the story of Chavis' insult from her lips, would have sought to find excuses for her insulter. On Sunday afternoon Ruth, Masten, Aunt Martha, and Uncle Jepson were sitting on the front porch of the Flying W ranchhouse.
"Meanin' that they ain't civilized, I reckon?" "Yes. Mr. Masten had the right view. He refused to resort to the methods you used in bringing Pickett to account. He is too much a gentleman to act the savage." For an instant Randerson's eyes lighted with a deep fire. And then he smiled mirthlessly. "I reckon Mr. Masten ain't never had anybody stir him up right proper," he said mildly.
She looked up, and this time met Randerson's gaze with more confidence, for his pretense of casualness had set her fears at rest. "Mr. Masten come over to see him, too." The lie came hesitatingly through her lips. She looked at Masten as though for confirmation, and the latter nodded. "Catherson is hard to catch," he said. "I've been over here a number of times, trying to see him."
And while both men stood, their muscles tensed to leap into action in response to the voice, Hagar burst into the room, looked at them both; saw Catherson's drawn pistol, and then threw herself upon her father, hid her face on his breast and sobbed: "It wasn't Rex, dad; it was Masten!" Catherson's excitement was over.
And so she felt a little more at ease. "I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Chavis," she said. "Your friend Mr. Pickett too." She indicated Masten with a nod of her head toward him. "This is Mr. Willard Masten, a very dear friend of mine." The color in her face deepened with the words. Chavis had looked twice at Masten before Ruth spoke. He looked again now, meeting the Easterner's eyes.
And when they saw him they stiffened and stood rigid, with not a finger moving, for they had seen men, before, meditating violence, and they saw the signs in Randerson's chilled and narrowed eyes, and in the grim set of his lips. His lips moved; his teeth hardly parted to allow the words to come through them. They writhed through: "Where's Masten?"
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