The Two-Gun Man Part 31

The clear-eyed man smiled enigmatically. "I'm stayin' game!" he declared grimly, without boast. "An' now I'm tellin' you somethin'.

Yesterday Leviatt told me he'd shot Ben Radford. He said he'd lied to Ben about you an' that he'd shot him so's his sister would think you done it. You've been white, an' so I'm squarin' things for you. I'm wishin' you luck."

For an instant he sat in the saddle, watching a new color surge into the stray-man's face. Then his pony was led away, through a tangle of undergrowth at the edge of the cottonwood. When Ferguson looked again, the little company had ridden into the shadow, but Ferguson could make out the clear-eyed man, still erect in his saddle, still seeming to wear an air of unstudied nonchalance. For a moment longer Ferguson saw him, and then he was lost in the shadows.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE END OF THE STORY

Two weeks later Ferguson had occasion to pa.s.s through Bear Flat.

Coming out of the flat near the cottonwood he met Ben Radford. The latter, his shoulder mending rapidly, grinned genially at the stray-man.

"I'm right sorry I made that mistake, Ferguson," he said; "but Leviatt sure did give you a bad reputation."

Ferguson smiled grimly. "He won't be sayin' bad things about anyone else," he said. And then his eyes softened. "But I'm some sorry for the cuss," he added.

"He had it comin'," returned Ben soberly. "An' I'd rather it was him than me." He looked up at Ferguson, his eyes narrowing quizzically.

"You ain't been around here for a long time," he said. "For a man who's just been promoted to range boss you're unnaturally shy."

Ferguson smiled. "I ain't paradin' around showin' off," he returned.

"Someone might take it into their head to bore me with a rifle bullet."

Radford's grin broadened. "I reckon you're wastin' valuable time," he declared. "For I happen to know that she wouldn't throw nothing worse'n a posy at you!"

"You don't say?" returned Ferguson seriously. "I reckon----"

He abruptly turned his pony down the trail that led to the cabin. As he rode up to the porch there was a sudden movement, a rustle, a gasp of astonishment, and Mary Radford stood in the doorway looking at him.

For a moment there was a silence that might have meant many things.

Both were thinking rapidly over the events of their last meeting at this very spot. Then Ferguson moved uneasily in the saddle.

"You got that there rifle anywheres handy?" he asked, grinning at her.

Her eyes drooped; one foot nervously pushed out the hem of her skirts.

Then she laughed, flushing crimson.

"It wasn't loaded anyway," she said.

The sunset was never more beautiful than to-day on the hill in Bear Flat. Mary Radford sat on the rock in her accustomed place and stretched out, full length beside her, was Ferguson. He was looking out over the flat, at the shadows of the evening that were advancing slowly toward the hill.

She turned toward him, her eyes full and luminous. "I am almost at the end of my story," she said smiling at him. "But," and her forehead wrinkled perplexedly, "I find the task of ending it more difficult than I had antic.i.p.ated. It's a love scene," she added banteringly; "do you think you could help me?"

He looked up at her. "I reckon I could help you in a real love scene,"

he said, "but I ain't very good at pretendin'."

"But this is a real love scene," she replied stoutly; "I am writing it as it actually occurred to me. I have reached the moment when you--I mean the hero--has declared his love for me,--of course (with a blush) I mean the heroine, and she has accepted him. But they are facing a problem. In the story he has been a cowpuncher and of course has no permanent home. And of course the reader will expect me to tell how they lived after they had finally decided to make life's journey together. Perhaps you can tell me how the hero should go about it."

"Do you reckon that any reader is that inquisitive?" he questioned.

"Why of course."

He looked anxiously at her. "In that case," he said, "mebbe the reader would want to know what the heroine thought about it. Would she want to go back East to live--takin' her cowpuncher with her to show off to her Eastern friends?"

She laughed. "I thought you were not very good at pretending," she said, "and here you are trying to worm a declaration of my intentions out of me. You did not need to go about that so slyly," she told him, with an earnestness that left absolutely no doubt of her determination, "for I am going to stay right here. Why," she added, taking a deep breath, and a lingering glance at the rift in the mountains where the rose veil descended, "I love the West."

He looked at her, his eyes narrowing with sympathy. "I reckon it's a pretty good little old country," he said. He smiled broadly. "An' now I'm to tell you how to end your story," he said, "by givin' you the hero's plans for the future. I'm tellin' you that they ain't what you might call elaborate. But if your inquisitive reader must know about them, you might say that Stafford is givin' his hero--I'm meanin', of course, his range boss--a hundred dollars a month--bein' some tickled over what his range boss has done for him.

"An' that there range boss knows when he's got a good thing. He's goin' to send to Cimarron for a lot of stuff--fixin's an' things for the heroine,--an' he's goin' to make a proposition to Ben Radford to make his cabin a whole lot bigger. Then him an' the heroine is goin'

to live right there--right where the hero meets the heroine the first time--when he come there after bein' bit by a rattler. An' then if any little heroes or heroines come they'd have----"

Her hand was suddenly over his mouth. "Why--why----" she protested, trying her best to look scornful--"do you imagine that I would think of putting such a thing as that into my book?"

He grinned guiltily. "I don't know anything about writin'," he said, properly humbled, "but I reckon it wouldn't be any of the reader's business."

THE END.