Bucky O'Connor Part 36

"I don't know. I can't quite think of you as friend, can I?"

"And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost."

"Except the danger of yourself," she said, in low voice, meeting him eye to eye.

He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning his arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle between the peak which still glowed with sunset light.

"I haven't met a woman of your kind before in ten years," he said presently. "I've lived on you looks, your motions, the inflections of your voice. I suppose I've been starved for that sort of thing and didn't know it till you came. It's been like a glimpse of heaven to me."

He laughed bitterly: and went on: "Of course, I had to take to drinking and let you see the devil I am. When I'm sober you would be as safe with me as with York. But the excitement of meeting you--I have to ride my emotions to death so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink stimulates the imagination, and I drank."

"I'm sorry."

Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously. "You're only a girl. What do you know about men of my sort? You have been wrappered and sheltered all your life. And yet you understand me better than any of the people I meet. All my life I have fought with myself.

I might have been a gentleman and I'm only a wolf. My appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions, stronger than myself dragged me down. It was Kismet, the destiny ordained for me from my birth."

"Isn't there always hope for a man who knows his weaknesses and fights against them?" she asked timidly.

"No, there is not," came the harsh answer. "Besides, I don't fight. I yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me.

You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt."

"I didn't think who you were," her honesty compelled her to say.

"That doesn't matter. You did it. I'm going to take you back to your father and straight as I can."

Her eyes lit. "Without a ransom?"

"Yes."

"You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir."

"I'm not coyote all through."

She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her.

"What about your friends? Will they let me go?"

"They'll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in private, and when they're away from me."

"I don't want to make trouble for you."

"You won't make trouble for me. If there's any trouble it will be for them," he said grimly.

Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness too late--too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed inexorably the character he could no longer change.

"I am sorry," she said again. "I didn't see that in you at first. I misjudged you. One can't label men just good or bad, as the novelists used to. You have taught me that--you and Mr. Neil."

His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. "I'm bad enough. Don't make any mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York's different. He's just a good man gone wrong. But I'm plain miscreant."

"Oh, no," she protested.

"As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through," he said again.

"Something's happened to me to-day. It won't change me. I've gone too far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his opinion of the deceased you'll remember one thing. He wasn't a wolf to you--not at the last."

"I'll not forget," she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.

York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner he had a joke up his sleeve.

"You're wanted, Phil," he announced.

"Wanted where?"

"You got a visitor in there," Neil said, with a grin and a jerk of his thumb toward the house. "Came blundering into the draw sorter accidental-like, but some curious. So I asked him if he wouldn't light and stay a while. He thought it over, and figured he would."

"Who is it?" asked Leroy.

"You go and see. I ain't giving away what your Christmas presents are. I aim to let Santa surprise you a few."

Miss Mackenzie followed the outlaw chief into the house, and over his shoulder glimpsed two men. One of them was the Irishman, Cork Reilly, and he sat with a Winchester across his knees. The other had his back toward them, but he turned as they entered, and nodded casually to the outlaw. Helen's heart jumped to her throat when she saw it was Val Collins.

The two men looked at each other steadily in a long silence. Wolf Leroy was the first to speak.

"You d.a.m.n fool!" The swarthy face creased to an evil smile of derision.

"I ce'tainly do seem to b.u.t.t in considerable, Mr. Leroy," admitted Collins, with an answering smile.

Leroy's square jaw set like a vise. "It won't happen again, Mr.

Sheriff."

"I'd hate to gamble on that heavy," returned Collins easily. Then he caught sight of the girl's white face, and rose to his feet with outstretched hand.

"Sit down," snapped out Reilly.

"Oh, that's all right I'm shaking hands with the lady. Did you think I was inviting you to drill a hole in me, Mr. Reilly?"

CHAPTER 18. A DINNER FOR THREE

"I thought we b.u.mped you off down at Epitaph," Leroy said.

"Along with Scott? Well, no. You see, I'm a regular cat to kill, Mr.

Leroy, and I couldn't conscientiously join the angels with so lame a story as a game laig to explain my coming," said Collins cheerfully.

"In that case--"

"Yes, I understand. You'd be willing to accommodate with a hole in the haid instead of one in the laig. But I'll not trouble you."

"What are you doing here? Didn't I warn you to attend to your own business and leave me alone?"