"It sure seems tame around these parts now," she remarked. "Do you know I almost miss being scared out of seven years' growth every once in a while since the 'bronchos' were rounded up and shipped to Florida."
"I suppose you are cleaning that pistol, then, just as a sentimental reminder of the happy days that are gone," laughed King.
"Not entirely," she replied. "There are still plenty of bad hombres left- all the bad ones weren't Indians, not by a jug full."
"I suppose not," agreed King. " As a matter of fact I doubt if the Apaches were responsible for half the killings that have been laid at their door; and, do you know, Chita, I can't bring myself to believe even yet that it was an Apache that killed your father. We got it pretty straight from some of the renegades themselves that at the time they were all with Geronimo in the mountains near Hot Springs, except those that were still in Sonora, and Shoz-Dijiji."
"Well, that narrows it down pretty close to one man, doesn't it?" demanded the girl, bitterly.
"Yes, Chita," replied King, "but I can't believe that he did it. He spared my life twice merely because I was your friend. If he could do that, how could he have killed your father?"
"I know, Ad. I've argued it out a hundred times," said the girl, wearily; "but that thousand dollars reward still stands."
"The chances are that it will stand forever, then," said King. "Shoz-Dijiji didn't come in with the other renegades; and, of course, you can:t get anything out of them; but it is better than an even bet that he was killed in Sonora during one of the last engagements. I know several bucks were killed; but they usually got them away and buried them, and they never like to talk about their dead."
"I hope to God that he is dead," said the girl.
King shook his head. He knew how bitterly she must feel -- more bitterly, perhaps, because the man she suspected was one to whom she had given her friendship and her aid when he was bearing arms against her country.
He had not told her of his conviction that Shoz-Dijiji and the dread Apache Devil were one and the same; and he did not tell her, for he knew that it would but tend to further assure her of the guilt of the Apache. There were two reasons why he did not tell her. One was his loyalty to the savage enemy who had befriended him and who might still be living. The other was his belief that Wichita Billings had harbored a warmer feeling than friendship for the war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, and King was not the type of man who takes an unfair advantage of a rival.
Perhaps it galled this scion of an aristocratic Boston family to admit, even to himself, that an untutored savage might have been his rival in seeking the hand of a girl; but he did not permit the suspicion to lessen his sense of gratitude to Shoz-Dijiji or dim the genuine respect he felt for the courage and honor of that savage warrior.
For a time the two sat in silence, Wichita busy with her revolver, King feasting his eyes upon her regular profile.
"Everything on the ranch running smoothly?" he asked, presently.
Wichita shook her head. "Not like they did when Dad was here," she admitted. "The boys are good to me, but it's not like having a man at the head of things. Some of them don't like 'Smooth' and I've lost several of my best men on that account. A couple of them quit, and 'Smooth' fired some. I can't interfere. As long as he's foreman he's got to be foreman. The minute the boys think I've lost confidence in him he won't have any more authority over them than a jack rabbit."
"Are you satisfied with him?" asked King.
"Well--he sure knows his business," she replied; "you'd have to hunt a month of Sundays before you found a better cow man; but he can't get the work out of his men. They don't feel any loyalty for him. They used to cuss Dad; and I've seen more than one of them pull a gun on him, but they'd work their fool heads off for him. They'd get sore as pups and quit; but they always came back--if he'd take them--and when he died, Ad, I saw men crying that I bet hadn't cried before since they were babies."
"That is like the old man," said King, thinking of his troop commander. Gosh! How I have hated that fellow--and while I'm hating him I can't help but love him. There are men like that, you know."
"They are the real men, I guess," mused Wichita; "they don't grow on every sage brush, not by a long shot."
"Why don't you sell out, Chita?" King asked her. "This is no job for a girl--it's a man's job, and you haven't the man for it."
"Lord, I wouldn't know what to do, Ad," she cried. "I'd be plumb lost. Why, this is my life--I don't know anything else. I belong here on a cow ranch in Arizona, and here I'm going to stay."
"But you don't belong here, Chita," he insisted. "You belong on a throne, with a retinue of slaves and retainers waiting on you."
She leaned back and laughed merrily. "And the first thing I'd know the king would catch me eating peas with my knife and pull the throne out from under me."
"I'm serious, Chita," urged King. "Come with me; let me take you away from this. The only throne I can offer you is in my heart, but it will be all yours--forever."
"I'd like to, Ad," she replied. "You don't know how great the temptation is, but --"
"Then why not?" he exclaimed, rising and coming toward her. "We could be married at the post; and I could get a short leave, I'm sure, even though I haven't been in the service two years. All your worries about the ranch would be over. You wouldn't have anything to do, Chita, but be happy."
"It wouldn't be fair, Ad," she said.
"Fair? What do you mean?" he demanded.
"It wouldn't be fair to you."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know whether I love you enough or not."
"I'll take the chance," he told her. "I'll make you love me."
She shook her head. "If I was going to marry a man and face a life that I was sure was going to be worse than the one I was leaving, I'd know that I loved him; and I wouldn't hesitate a minute; but if I marry you it might just be because what you have to offer me looks like heaven compared to the life I've been leading since Dad died. I think too much of you and my self respect to take the chance of waking up to the fact some day that I don't love you. That would be Hell for us both, Ad; and you don't deserve it--you're too white."
"I tell you that I'm perfectly willing to takethe chance, Chita."
"Yes, but I wont let you. Wait a while. If I really love you I'll find it out somehow, and you'll know it--if you don't I'll tell you--but I'm not sure now."
"Is there someone else, Chita?"
"No!" she cried, and her vehemence startled him.
"I'll wait, then, because I have to wait," he said, "and in the meantime if there is any way in which I can help you, let me do it."
"Well," she said, laughing, "you might teach the cows how to drill. I can't think of anything else around a cow outfit, right off-hand, that you could do. Sometimes it seems to me like they didn't have any cows back where you came from."
King laughed. "They used to. All the streets in Boston were laid out by cows, they say."
"Out here," said Chita, "we drive our cows--we don't follow them."
"Perhaps that's the difference between the East and the West," said King. "Out here you blaze your own trails. I guess that's where you get your self-confidence and initiative."
"And it may account for some of our short-comings, too," she replied. "Where you're just following cows you have lots of time to think of other things and improve yourself, but when you're driving them you haven't time to think of anything except just cows. That's the fix I'm in now."
"When you have discovered that you might learn to love me you will have time for other things," he reminded her.