im, and right now she is
worried to death about him. She couldn't hide her anxiety, and asked a
good many round-about questions about where he was gone to, and if we
knew whether the sheriff was hunting for him now, and if we thought Mr.
Westerfelt would prosecute him."

Harriet laughed. "Well, I never dreamt there was a thing between those
two. When he asked her to go with him in his buggy out home, I thought
it was because she lived on the road to his father's, and that he just
did it to accommodate her, and--"

"Oh, I've no doubt that is what _he_ did it for, darling, but she was
falling in love with him all the time, and now that he is in trouble,
she can't hide it. Do you know her conduct this morning has set me to
thinking? The night you and I spent over at Joe Long's I heard Wambush
came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to
town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he
was talking to Hettie in our back yard. Do you know it ain't a bit
unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow? They say he was
laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip.
I'll bet she helped him."

"If she is in love with him she did, I reckon," returned Harriet,
wisely. "I wish he was in love with her. He is getting entirely too
troublesome."

"He'll never care a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted
the old lady. "I'm sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much.
He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him
whether or no. He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt." Mrs. Floyd lowered
her voice. "If he hadn't been, he wouldn't have fought him as he did.
That is at the bottom of it, daughter, and now that he is a regular
outlaw I am awfully uneasy. If I ever get a chance, I'm going to
convince him that it is useless for him to worry you as he does. I'd
rather see you in your grave than married to a man like that."

Chapter IX

It was a week before John Westerfelt was strong enough to leave his
room in the hotel. Inflammation of his wound had set in, and at one
time his condition was thought to be quite critical.

One day Luke Bradley came in his buggy to drive him out to his house.

"Marthy won't heer to a refusal," he said. "She's powerful' troubled.
She 'lowed ef we'd 'a' made you stay with us you'd not 'a' been apt to
'a' met Wambush that day, an' 'a' been laid up like this. She's jest
dyin'