CHAPTER XVIII
BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS
To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoonalong the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from theridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying inher hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steepslope.
"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awfulglad I met you."
"Where were you going now?" she asked.
"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don'tmind."
She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time forsupper, and you can ride home afterward."
"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with ameaning look from his dark eyes.
"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she saidcarelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to thepurple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant canon.
"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it."
She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut,smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one mighthave ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestiveof the land that had cradled and reared her.
His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish youwouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyishdirectness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech.
"And if I can't help it?" he laughed.
"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy,"she told him.
"I don't say them because I have to."
"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it whenyou've known a girl eighteen years."
"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl."
Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. Butthen one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon."
"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered.
"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quiteeighteen years," she mocked.
"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this timecrept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any oneelse, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?"
Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when youtalk that way."
The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against therustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you'rerunning after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?"
"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprisedpony a sharp stroke with the quirt.
Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took upthe conversation where it had dropped.
"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see.Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway afterhe's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?"
"I don't believe he was rustling at all."
"Course you don't _believe_ it. That proves just what I was saying."
"Jim doesn't believe it, either."
"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell youright now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's gettingtoo thick with that Bear Creek bunch."
"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are,"the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could seethat Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if hetried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to betold that."
"Oh, _you_ say so," he growled sullenly.
"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with aflash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friendsrounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I'veheard stories."
"What about?"
"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's _your_ business. Onedoesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spokewith a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities.
"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily.
"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you haveyour faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people whilethey try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't."
She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him uponthe defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his originalpoint.
"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but aboutyou. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in andhelped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied forhim to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse."
"In saving him from being lynched by you?"
"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. Ihad a cut on _my_ cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!"
"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and justbecause I didn't let a wounded man suffer."
"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly.
Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you thejudge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've gotto reform somebody, let it be yourself."
"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "Thatgives me a right."
"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you werethe last man on earth."
"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No,nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was rightattentive before he went home."
Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she askedquietly.
"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That'swhat's the matter with you."
"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has beenso honest with me," she assured him sweetly.
"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'lllet Keller butt in. Not on your life."
Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything soinsolent. Never! _You'll_ not let me do this or that. Who are you, BrillHealy?"
"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisteddoggedly.
"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll notask for your indorsement. Be sure of that."
"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!"
"Who do you mean?"
"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet.He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got topull his freight out of the Malpais country."
"And if he won't?"
"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, ridinghis triumph roughshod over her feelings.
"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he isinnocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!"
"You'll see."
"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; andI'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" shecried tensely.
"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to himout of charity," he mocked.
For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in thefaint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of themtoo bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from thesaddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supperinvitation and his acceptance cancelled.
He bowed ironically and turned to leave.
"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece ofnews that will make you sit up."
The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came runningout to the porch and fired his bolt.
"The Fir
st National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and therobbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!"
"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, ofcourse."
"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute fromfollowing their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em,Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way."
"What makes him think so?" asked Healy.
"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It wasthat fellow Keller."
"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together.
Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sureabout the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them asthey go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to doit if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about fortyfrom the Pass.
"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than fivehours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them.What think, Brill? Can we make it?"
"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slipthrough my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly.
"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr.Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment.
There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'llshow you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Callup Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many ofthe boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they gethere. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but Imay make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them offif they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boysright along."
And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off.