_did_ know I was just crazy about her Texan?" And, with the question
unanswered, she touched the bay mare with her spurs and headed her down
a long black ridge that extended far into the bad lands.

CHAPTER XXVII

SOME SHOOTING

When the Texan left Cass Grimshaw he headed due north. He rode
leisurely--light-heartedly. The knowledge that Alice was safe at
Cinnabar Joe's left his mind free to follow its own bent, and its bent
carried it back to the little cabin on Red Sand, and the girl with the
blue-black eyes. Most men would have concentrated upon the grim work in
hand--but not so the Texan. He was going to kill Purdy because Purdy
needed killing. By his repeated acts Purdy had forfeited his right to
live among men. He was a menace--a power for harm whose liberty
endangered the lives and happiness of others. His course in hunting down
and killing this enemy of society needed no elaboration nor
justification. It was a thing to be done in the course of the day's
work. The fact that Purdy knew the ground, and he did not, and that the
numerical odds were four to one against him, bothered him not at all. If
others of the same ilk had seen fit to throw in with Purdy they must
abide the consequences.

So his thoughts were of the girl, and his lips broke into a smile--not
the twisted smile that had become almost habitual with him, but a
boyish smile that caused a fanlike arrangement of little wrinkles to
radiate from the corners of his eyes, and the eyes themselves to twinkle
with mirth. As men of the open are prone to do, he voiced his thoughts
as they came: "She sure give me to onderstand last night that runnin'
off with other men's wives is an amusement that wouldn't never meet her
popular approval. It's, what do the French call it--a _faux pas_ that's
not only frowned on, but actually scowled at, an' made the excuse for
numerous an' sundry barbed shafts of sarcasm an' caustic observations of
a more or less personal application, all of which is supposed to make a
man feel like he'd not only et the canary, but a whole damn buzzard--an'
wish he hadn't lived to survive doin' it." The man glanced up at the
sun. "Time I was gettin' outside of this lunch she packed up for
me--chances are I won't want to stop an' eat it after awhile."
Dismounting, he seated himself with his back against a rock and unrolled
the sandwiches. "She made 'em," he observed to Blue, "regular light
bread, an' good thick ham between." He devoured