Knights of the Range. Zane Grey
she queried, composedly, though to Britt’s astonishment, her usual poise had gone into eclipse.
“Frayne. Renn Frayne,” he replied. He was courteous but cold. The immeasurable distance between Holly Ripple and an outlaw of the range might have been imperceptible to Heaver, but not to this man.
“Mr. Frayne, I—I am exceedingly grateful for your—your timely interference.”
“Don’t mention it, Miss Ripple,” he returned, flipping his cigarette away. After that first direct glance he did not look up at her again. “I want no thanks. You only distress yourself further—coming inside near these dead men. Go away, at once.”
“It was sickening, but I am over that. . . . Thanks in this case seem so silly. But won’t you accept something substantial?”
“For what?” he retorted, and his wonderful gray eyes, clear and light as crystal, and as soulless, turned to fix upon her.
“Evidently you place little store upon your service to me,” she replied, pride gaining ascendancy.
“And you want to pay me for shooting a couple of dogs?”
“You make my duty difficult, Mr. Frayne. . . . But I do want to reward you. Will you accept money?”
“No.”
She stripped off a gauntlet to take a magnificent ring of Spanish design from her finger and proffered that to him with an appealing smile.
“Won’t you take this?”
“Thank you. I don’t want it.”
“Would you accept one of my thoroughbreds?” she persisted, hopefully.
“Miss Holly Ripple,” he said, as if stung, “I am Renn Frayne, outlaw, rustler, gunman. This day made me a horse-thief. I have not a dollar to my name, nor a bed to sleep in, nor a friend in the world. But I cannot accept pay or gift for what I did. You could not reward such service any more than you could buy it. Not from me.”
“Forgive me. I did not understand,” she replied, hastily. “But your—your kind have been unknown to me. How was I to know that a desperado—all you called yourself—could be a—a gentleman? You are a knight of the range, sir.” Plaintively she appealed to Britt. “What can I do, Cappy? He has placed me under eternal obligation.”
“Lass, I reckon you’ll have to let it go at thet,” replied Britt.
“Miss Ripple, I am rude, but I don’t misunderstand you,” said Frayne. “If you must do something for me. . . . But first—Haven’t you any more sense than to ride out on this range alone?”
“I—I do as I please,” retorted Holly.
“Then you ought to have a lesson. I’ve ridden all the wild ranges. And this is the worst. You are a headstrong little fool.”
“How dare you?”
“I call spades spades, Miss Ripple,” he rejoined. “It may do you further service to listen to the truth. You are a spoiled young woman. If Heaver had packed you off to the mountains, as he and many men like him have done before with girls—you’d soon have learned that blood, wealth, pride could avail you not at all. You would have become a rag. Heaver would have made you wash his feet.”
“Sir! . . . Pray do not make me resent your service to me.”
“That is nothing to me. But have you no father to hold you down?”
“He is gone—and my mother, too.” In spite of herself, Holly seemed impelled to answer him.
“It’s easy to see you have no husband. But surely a sweetheart——”
“No!” A crimson tide blotted out Holly’s lovely fairness.
“Small wonder then. Well, Miss Holly, if I were your father I’d spank some sense into you. And if I were your sweetheart, I’d beat you good and hard.”
Holly’s individuality seemed to have suffered a blight. Her great eyes opened like midnight gulfs. In mute fascination she stared at this stranger to whom she owed so great a debt and who, all in the same hour, dared to flay her as no one had ever dared.
“You’re a child, too,” he went on, as if astounded to contriteness. “Well, I’ll tell you how you can reward me. Promise on your honor never to ride out on this range again without men to protect you. That’d save you and your friends bitter grief. And for me it would mean one good deal to chalk up against all the bad ones.”
“I—promise,” she replied, tremulously.
“Thank you, Holly Ripple. I didn’t really think you would. . . . Shake hands on it, man to man. . . . There, we’re quits.”
“Do you trust me?” she asked, strangely. “Do you think I can keep it?”
He studied the beautiful face apparently blind to its charm, and impervious to the lure of her femininity, as one to whom the thought of attainableness had never occurred.
“You would never break your solemn word,” he said, with finality and turned to Britt. “Take her home, Tex. You’ll send some boys down to plant these stiffs?”
“Shore will, Frayne. You better search them.”
“Not me. And I mustn’t forget to tell you that your boy Stinger might still be alive.”
“If Brazos Keene got away from Heaver he’s right back with Stinger now. Cowboys don’t come any nervier than Brazos.”
“Brazos Keene. Wonder where I heard that name. He got away, Britt, believe me. They was all shooting at him. A chip off the old Texas block. Watch that lad, Britt.”
“Wait—please wait,” called Holly, as Frayne turned to look for his horse.
“I thought we were quits,” he said, dubiously.
“Not yet. I have something more to ask of you.”
Britt cursed under his breath. Almost, but not too late, to send him aghast and quaking the girl had come to her sweetest self. A man would have to be anchored like the rocks not to be drawn by those eyes of velvet blackness, shining eloquence of her strong and passionate soul.
“Make it adios, señorita,” Frayne said.
“You have no money, no bed, no friend in all the world.”
“I told you. It is unkind to remind me.”
“What will you do?”
“The same as many a time before. Ride on.”
“Not back to Heaver’s men!”
“No.”
“You’ll ride on alone, until loneliness drives you to other men like them?”
“The truth is bitter, Miss Ripple.”
“Renn Frayne, you do not belong to such gangs.”
“I did not once, but I do now.”
“You do not.”
“Why, may I ask?” he queried, wearily.
“Because of something noble in you. Because you killed to save a girl from harm!”
“Well, I shall remember how Holly Ripple romanced over me,” he rejoined, with the ghost of a smile.
“Will you work for me?” she asked.
“Miss—Ripple!” Frayne ejaculated, at last shocked out of his indifference.
“Will you ride for me?”
“Girl, you are mad,” he burst out, incredulously. “You ask me—Renn Frayne—to ride for you?”
“Yes. . . . Britt, don’t stand there like a gaping idiot. Tell him I need him,