The Man of the Forest, Zane Grey [manga ebook reader txt] 📗

“Well, you act and talk very strangely then.”

“Nell Rayner—are—you—you sticking up for that—that devil?”

“I am, yes, so far as it concerns my conscience,” rejoined Helen, earnestly. “I never appreciated him as he deserved—not until now. He's a man, Bo, every inch of him. I've seen him grow up to that in three months. I'd never have gotten along without him. I think he's fine, manly, big. I—”

“I'll bet—he's made love—to you, too,” replied Bo, woefully.

“Talk sense,” said Helen, sharply. “He has been a brother to me. But, Bo Rayner, if he HAD made love to me I—I might have appreciated it more than you.”

Bo raised her face, flushed in part and also pale, with tear-wet cheeks and the telltale blaze in the blue eyes.

“I've been wild about that fellow. But I hate him, too,” she said, with flashing spirit. “And I want to go on hating him. So don't tell me any more.”

Whereupon Helen briefly and graphically related how Carmichael had offered to kill Beasley, as the only way to save her property, and how, when she refused, that he threatened he would do it anyhow.

Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.

“Oh—Nell! Oh, now I love him more than—ever,” she cried, in mingled rage and despair.

Helen clasped her closely and tried to comfort her as in the old days, not so very far back, when troubles were not so serious as now.

“Of course you love him,” she concluded. “I guessed that long ago. And I'm glad. But you've been wilful—foolish. You wouldn't surrender to it. You wanted your fling with the other boys. You're—Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad little flirt.”

“I—I wasn't very bad till—till he got bossy. Why, Nell, he acted—right off—just as if he OWNED me. But he didn't.... And to show him—I—I really did flirt with that Turner fellow. Then he—he insulted me.... Oh, I hate him!”

“Nonsense, Bo. You can't hate any one while you love him,” protested Helen.

“Much you know about that,” flashed Bo. “You just can! Look here. Did you ever see a cowboy rope and throw and tie up a mean horse?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Do you have any idea how strong a cowboy is—how his hands and arms are like iron?”

“Yes, I'm sure I know that, too.”

“And how savage he is?”

“Yes.”

“And how he goes at anything he wants to do?”

“I must admit cowboys are abrupt,” responded Helen, with a smile.

“Well, Miss Rayner, did you ever—when you were standing quiet like a lady—did you ever have a cowboy dive at you with a terrible lunge—grab you and hold you so you couldn't move or breathe or scream—hug you till all your bones cracked—and kiss you so fierce and so hard that you wanted to kill him and die?”

Helen had gradually drawn back from this blazing-eyed, eloquent sister, and when the end of that remarkable question came it was impossible to reply.

“There! I see you never had that done to you,” resumed Bo, with satisfaction. “So don't ever talk to me.”

“I've heard his side of the story,” said Helen, constrainedly.

With a start Bo sat up straighter, as if better to defend herself.

“Oh! So you have? And I suppose you'll take his part—even about that—that bearish trick.”

“No. I think that rude and bold. But, Bo, I don't believe he meant to be either rude or bold. From what he confessed to me I gather that he believed he'd lose you outright or win you outright by that violence. It seems girls can't play at love out here in this wild West. He said there would be blood shed over you. I begin to realize what he meant. He's not sorry for what he did. Think how strange that is. For he has the instincts of a gentleman. He's kind, gentle, chivalrous. Evidently he had tried every way to win your favor except any familiar advance. He did that as a last resort. In my opinion his motives were to force you to accept or refuse him, and in case you refused him he'd always have those forbidden stolen kisses to assuage his self-respect—when he thought of Turner or any one else daring to be familiar with you. Bo, I see through Carmichael, even if I don't make him clear to you. You've got to be honest with yourself. Did that act of his win or lose you? In other words, do you love him or not?”

Bo hid her face.

“Oh, Nell! it made me see how I loved him—and that made me so—so sick I hated him.... But now—the hate is all gone.”