"The Bar Double G. My father owns it," Miss Lee explained.
"Oh! Your father owns it." He reflected a moment while he studied her.
"Let's understand each other, Miss Lee. I'm not what I claim to be, you
say. We'll put it that you have guessed right. What do you intend to do
about it? I'm willing to be made welcome at the Bar Double G, but I don't
want to be too welcome."
"I'm not going to do anything."
"So long as I remember not to remember what I've seen."
The blood burned in her cheeks beneath their Arizona tan. She did not look
at him. "If you like to put it that way."
He counted it to her credit that she was ashamed of the bargain in every
honest fiber of her.
"No matter what they say I've done. You'll keep faith?"
"I don't care what you've done," she flung back bitterly. "It's none of my
affair. I told you that before. Men come out here for all sorts of
reasons. We don't ask for a bill of particulars."
"Then I'll be right glad to go down to the Bar Double G with you, and say
thanks for the chance."
He had dismounted when they first reached the pass. Now she swung to the
saddle and he climbed behind her. They reached presently one of the
nomadic trails of the cattle country which wander leisurely around hills
and over gulches along the line of least resistance. This brought them to
a main traveled road leading to the ranch.
They rode in silence until the pasture fence was passed.
"What am I to tell them your name is?" she asked stiffly.
He took his time to answer. "Tom Morse is a good name, don't you think?
How would T. L. Morse do?"
She offered no comment, but sat in front of him, unresponsive as the
sphinx. The rigor of her flat back told him that, though she might have to
keep his shameful secret for the sake of her own, he could not presume
upon it the least in the world.
Melissy turned the horse over to a little Mexican boy and they were just
mounting the steps of the porch when a young man cantered up to the house.
Lean and muscular and sunbaked, he looked out of cool, gray eyes upon a
man's world that had often put him through the acid test. The plain,
cactus-torn chaps, flannel shirt open at the sinewy throat, dusty,
wide-brimmed hat, revolver peeping from its leather pocket on the thigh:
every detail contributed to the impression of efficiency he created. Even
the one touch of swagger about him, the blue silk kerchief knotted loosely
around his neck, lent color to his virile competency.