If he
just could hear from his friends in Arizona about that place he's
trying to get me, I'd go right off."
He looked at her wistfully. The bow-legged range-rider was in no hurry
to have her go. She was the first girl who had ever looked twice at
him, the first one he had ever taken out or talked nonsense with or
been ordered about by in the possessive fashion used by the modern
young woman. Hence he was head over heels in love.
Kitty had begun to bloom again. Her cheeks were taking on their old
rounded contour and occasionally dimples of delight flashed into them.
She was a young person who lived in the present. Already the marks of
her six-weeks misery among the submerged derelicts of the city was
beginning to be wiped from her mind like the memory of a bad dream from
which she had awakened. Love was a craving of her happy, sensuous
nature.
She wanted to live in the sun, among smiles and laughter. She was like
a kitten in her desire to be petted, made much of, and admired. Almost
anybody who liked her could win a place in her affection.
Johnnie's case was not so hopeless as he imagined it.
CHAPTER XX
THE CAUTIOUS GUY SLIPS UP
Over their good-night smoke Clay gave a warning. "Keep yore eyes open,
Johnnie. I was trailed to the house to-day by one of the fellows with
Durand the night I called on him. It spells trouble. I reckon the
'Paches are going to leave the reservation again."
"Do you allow that skunk is aimin' to bushwhack you?"
"He's got some such notion.
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