Mr. Hampton was never of a pronounced emotional nature, nor was he a
person easily disconcerted, yet he flushed at the sound of these
impulsive words, and the confident smile deserted his lips. For a
moment they sat thus, the dead body lying between, and looked at each
other. When the man finally broke the constrained silence a deeper
intonation had crept into his voice.
"My girl," he said gravely, and not without a suspicion of pleading,
"this is no place for me to attempt any defence of a shooting affray in
a gambling-house, although I might plead with some justice that Eberly
enjoyed the honor of shooting first. I was not aware of your personal
feeling in the matter, or I might have permitted some one else to come
here in my stead. Now it is too late. I have never spoken to you
before, and do so at this time merely from a sincere desire to be of
some assistance."
There was that in his manner of grave courtesy which served to steady
the girl. Probably never before in all her rough frontier experience
had she been addressed thus formally. Her closely compressed lips
twitched nervously, but her questioning eyes remained unlowered.
"You may stay," she asserted, soberly. "Only don't touch me."
No one could ever realize how much those words hurt him. He had been
disciplined in far too severe a school ever to permit his face to index
the feelings of his heart, yet the unconcealed shrinking of this
uncouth child from slightest personal contact with him cut through his
acquired reserve as perhaps nothing else could ever have done. Not
until he had completely conquered his first unwise impulse to retort
angrily, did he venture again to speak.
"I hope to aid you in getting back beside the others, where you will be
less exposed."
"Will you take him?"
"He is dead," Hampton said, soberly, "and I can do nothing to aid him.
But there remains a chance for you to escape."
"Then I won't go," she declared, positively.
Hampton's gray eyes looked for a long moment fixedly into her darker
ones, while the two took mental stock of each other. He realized the
utter futility of any further argument, while she felt instinctively
the cool, dominating strength of the man. Neither was composed of that
poor fibre which bends.
"Very well, my young lady," he said, easily, stretching himself out
more comfortably in the rock shadow. "Then I will remain here with
you; it makes small odds."