The Range Boss Part 22

"Oh, I have used a revolver before," she told him, "not so large a one as this, of course. But I know better than to point it at myself."

"I see you do, ma'am." His hand went out quickly and closed over hers, for she had been directing the muzzle of the weapon fairly at his chest.

"You ought never point it at anybody that you don't want to shoot," he remonstrated gently.

He showed her how to hold the weapon, told her to stand sideways to the target, with her right arm extended and rigid, level with the shoulder.

He took some time at this; three times after she extended her arm he seemed to find it necessary to take hold of the arm to rearrange its position, lingering long at this work, and squeezing the pistol hand a little too tightly, she thought.

"Don't go to pullin' the trigger too fast or too hard," he warned; "a little time for the first shot will save you shootin' again, mebbe--until you get used to it. She'll kick some, but you'll get onto that pretty quick."

She pulled the trigger, and the muzzle of the pistol flew upward.

"I reckon that target feels pretty safe, ma'am," he said dryly. "But that buzzard up there will be pullin' his freight--if he's got any sense."

She fired again, her lips compressed determinedly. At the report a splinter of wood flew from the top of the post. She looked at him with an exultant smile.

"That's better," he told her, grinning; "you'll be hittin' the soap box, next."

She did hit it at the fourth attempt, and her joy was great.

For an hour she practiced, using many cartridges, reveling in this new pastime. She hit the target often, and toward the end she gained such confidence and proficiency that her eyes glowed proudly. Then, growing tired, she invited him to the porch again, and until near noon they talked of guns and shooting.

Her interest in him had grown. His interest in her had always been deep, and the constraint that had been between them no longer existed.

At noon she went into the house and prepared luncheon, leaving him sitting on the porch alone. When she called Randerson in, and he took a chair across from her, she felt a distinct embarra.s.sment. It was not because she was there alone with him, for he had a right to be there; he was her range boss and his quarters were in the house; he was an employee, and no conventions were being violated. But the embarra.s.sment was there.

Did Randerson suspect her interest in him? That question a.s.sailed her.

She studied him, and was uncertain. For his manner had not changed. He was still quiet, thoughtful, polite, still deferential and natural, with a quaintness of speech and a simplicity that had gripped her, that held her captive.

But her embarra.s.sment fled as the meal progressed. She forgot it in her interest for him. She questioned him again; he answered frankly. And through her questions she learned much of his past life, of his hopes and ambitions. They were as simple and natural as himself.

"I've been savin' my money, ma'am," he told her. "I'm goin' to own a ranch of my own, some day. There's fellows that blow in all their wages in town, not thinkin' of tomorrow. But I quit that, quite a while ago.

I'm lookin' out for tomorrow. It's curious, ma'am. Fellows will try to get you to squander your money, along with their own, an' if you don't, they'll poke fun at you. But they'll respect you for not squanderin' it, like they do. I reckon they know there ain't any sense to it." Thus she discovered that there was little frivolity in his make-up, and pleasure stirred her. And then he showed her another side of his character--his respect for public opinion.

"But I ain't stingy, ma'am. I reckon I've proved it. There's a difference between bein' careful an' stingy."

"How did you prove it?"

He grinned at her. "Why, I ain't mentionin'," he said gently.

But she had heard of his generosity--from several of the men, and from Hagar Catherson. She mentally applauded his reticence.

She learned that he had read--more than she would have thought, from his speech--and that he had profited thereby.

"Books give the writer's opinion of things," he said. "If you read a thoughtful book, you either agree with the writer, or you don't, accordin' to your nature an' understandin'. None of them get things exactly right, I reckon, for no man can know everything. He's got to fall down, somewhere. An' so, when you read a book, you've got to do a heap of thinkin' on your own hook, or else you'll get mistaken ideas an' go to gettin' things mixed up. I like to do my own thinkin'."

"Are you always right?"

"Bless you, ma'am, no. I'm scarcely ever right. I'll get to believin' a thing, an' then along will come somethin' else, an' I'll have to start all over again. Or, I'll talk to somebody, an' find that they've got a better way of lookin' at a thing. I reckon that's natural."

They did not go out to shoot again. Instead, they went out on the porch, and there, sitting in the shade, they talked until the sun began to swim low in the sky.

At last he got up, grinning.

"I've done a heap of loafin' today, ma'am. But I've certainly enjoyed myself, talkin' to you. But if you ain't goin' to try to hit the target any more, I reckon I'll be ridin' back to the outfit."

She got up, too, and held out her hand to him. "Thank you," she said.

"You have made the day very short for me. It would have been lonesome here, without aunt and uncle."

"I saw them goin'," he informed her.

"And," she continued, smiling, "I am going to ask you to come again, very soon, to teach me more about shooting."

"Any time, ma'am." He still held her hand. And now he looked at it with a blush, and dropped it gently. Her face reddened a little too, for now she realized that he had held her hand for quite a while, and she had made no motion to withdraw it. Their eyes met eloquently. The gaze held for an instant, and then both laughed, as though each had seen something in the eyes of the other that had been concealed until this moment. Then Ruth's drooped. Randerson smiled and stepped off the porch to get his pony.

A little later, after waving his hand to Ruth from a distance, he rode away, his mind active, joy in his heart.

"You're a knowin' horse, Patches," he said confidentially to the pony.

"If you are, what do you reckon made her ask so many questions?" He gulped over a thought that came to him.

"She was shootin' at the target, Patches," he mused. "But do you reckon she was aimin' at me?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GUNFIGHTER

Red Owen, foreman of the Flying W in place of Tom Chavis, resigned, was stretched out on his blanket, his head propped up with an arm, looking at the lazy, licking flames of the campfire. He was whispering to Bud Taylor, named by Randerson to do duty as straw boss in place of the departed Pickett, and he was referring to a new man of the outfit who had been hired by Randerson about two weeks before because the work seemed to require the services of another man, and he had been the only applicant.

The new man was reclining on the other side of the fire, smoking, paying no attention to any of the others around him. He was listening, though, to the talk, with a sort of detached interest, a half smile on his face, as though his interest were that of scornful amus.e.m.e.nt.

He was of medium height, slender, dark. He was taciturn to the point of monosyllabic conversation, and the perpetual, smiling sneer on his face had gotten on Red Owen's nerves.

"Since he's joined the outfit, he's opened his yap about three times a day--usual at grub time, when if a man loosens up at all, he'll loosen up then," Red told Taylor, glaring his disapproval. "I've got an idea that I've seen the cuss somewheres before, but I ain't able to place him."

"His mug looks like he was soured on the world--especial himself. If I had a twistin' upper lip like that, I'd sure plant some whiskers on it. A mustache, now, would hide a lot of the hyena in him."

Owen stared meditatively at the new man through the flames. "Yes," he said expressionlessly, "a mustache would make him look a whole lot different." He was straining his mental faculties in an effort to remember a man of his acquaintance who possessed a lower lip like that of the man opposite him, eyes with the same expression in them, and a nose that was similar. He did not succeed, for memory was laggard, or his imagination was playing him a trick. He had worried over the man's face since the first time he had seen it.

He heaved a deep breath now, and looked perplexedly into the flames.

"It's like a word that gits onto the end of your tongue when your brain-box ain't got sense enough to shuck it out," he remarked, lowly.

"But I'll git it, some time--if I don't go loco frettin' about it."

"What you figger on gettin'--a new job?" asked Taylor, who had been sinking into a nap.