Bucky O'Connor Part 23

He had forgotten the pretense that still lay between them, so far as words went when they had last parted. Nor did it yet occur to him that he had swept aside the convention of her being a boy. But she was vividly aware of it, and aware, too, of the demand his last words had made for a recognition of the relationship that existed in feeling between them.

"I knew you knew I was a girl," she murmured.

"You knew more than that," he challenged joyfully.

But, in woman's way, she ignored his frontal attack. He was going at too impetuous a speed for her reluctance. "How long have you known that I wasn't a boy--not from the first, surely?"

"I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't. I was sure locoed," he confessed. "It was when you came out dressed as a gypsy that I knew.

That explained to me a heap of things I never had understood before about you."

"It explained, I suppose, why I never had licked the stuffing out of any other kid, and why you did not get very far in making a man out of me as you promised," she mocked.

"Yes, and it explained how you happened to say you were eighteen. By mistake you let the truth slip out. Course I wouldn't believe it."

"I remember you didn't. I think you conveyed the impression to me diplomatically that you had doubts."

"I said it was a lie," he laughed. "I sure do owe you a heap of apologies for being so plumb dogmatic when you knew best. You'll have to sit down on me hard once in a while, or there won't be any living with me."

Blushingly she did some more ignoring. "That was the first time you threatened to give me a whipping," she recalled aloud.

"My goodness! Did I ever talk so foolish?"

"You did, and meant it."

"But somehow I never did it. I wonder why I didn't."

"Perhaps I was so frail you were afraid you would break me."

"No, that wasn't it. In the back of my haid somewhere there was an instinct that said: 'Bucky, you chump, if you don't keep your hands off this kid you'll be right sorry all your life.' Not being given to many ideas, I paid a heap of respect to that one."

"Well, it's too bad, for I probably needed that whipping, and now you'll never be able to give it to me."

"I shan't ever want to now."

Saucily her merry eyes shot him from under the long lashes. "I'm not so sure of that. Girls can be mighty aggravating."

"That's the way girls are meant to be, I expect," he laughed. "But fifteen-year-old boys have to be herded back into line. There's a difference."

She rescued her hands from him and led the way to a bench that served for a seat. "Sit down here, sir. There are one or two things that I have to explain." She sat down beside him at the farther end of the bench.

"This light is so dim, I can't see you away over there," he pleaded, moving closer.

"You don't need to see me. You can hear me, can't you?"

"I reckon."

She seemed to find a difficulty in beginning, even though the darkness helped her by making it impossible for him to see her embarra.s.sment.

Presently he chuckled softly. "No, ma'am, I can't even hear you. If you're talking, I'll have to come closer."

"If you do, I'll get up. I want you to be really earnest."

"I never was more earnest in my life, Curly."

"Please, Bucky? It isn't easy to say it, and you mustn't make it harder."

"Do you have to say it, pardner?" he asked, more seriously.

"Yes, I have to say it." And swiftly she blurted it out. "Why do you suppose I came with you to Mexico?"

"I don't know." He grappled with her suggestion for a moment. "I suppose--you said it was because you were afraid of Hardman."

"Well, I wasn't. At least, I wasn't afraid that much. I knew that I would have been quite safe next time with the Mackenzies at the ranch."

"Then why was it?"

"You can't think of any reason?" She leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes--eyes as honest and as blue as an Arizona sky.

But he stood unconvicted--nay, acquitted. The one reason she had dreaded he might offer to himself had evidently never entered his head. Whatever guesses he might have made on the subject, he was plainly guiltless of thinking she might have come with him because she was in love with him.

"No, I can't think of any other reason, if the one you gave isn't the right one."

"Quite sure?"

"Quite sure, pardner."

"Think! Why did you come to Chihuahua?"

"To run down Wolf Leroy's gang and to get Dave Henderson out of prison."

"Perhaps there is a reason why I should want him out of prison, a better reason than you could possibly have."

"I don't savvy it. How can there be? You don't know him, do you? He's been in prison almost ever since you were born." And on top of his last statement Bucky's eyes began to open with a new light. "Good heavens! It can't be possible. You're not Webb Mackenzie's little girl, are you?"

She did not answer him in words, but from her neck she slipped a chain and handed it to him. On the chain hung a locket.

The ranger struck a match and examined the trinket. "It's the very missing locket. See! Here's the other one. Compare them together." He touched the spring and it opened, but the match was burned out and he had to light another. "Here's the mine map that has been lost all these years. How did you get this? Have you always had it? And how long have you known that you were Frances Mackenzie?"

His questions tumbled out one upon another in his excitement.

She laughed, answering him categorically. "I don't know, for sure. Yes, at least a great many years. Less than a week."

"But--I don't understand--"

"And won't until you give me a chance to do some of the talking," she interrupted dryly.

"That's right. I reckon I am getting off left foot first. It's your powwow now," he conceded.

"So long as I can remember exactly I have always lived with the man Hardman and his wife. But before that I can vaguely recall something different. It has always seemed like a kind of fairyland, for I was a very little tot then. But one of the things I seem to remember was a sweet, kind-eyed mother and a big, laughing father. Then, too, there were horses and lots of cows. That is about all, except that the chain around my neck seemed to have some connection with my early life. That's why I always kept it very carefully, and, after one of the lockets broke, I still kept it and the funny-looking paper inside of it."