Melissy of the Bar Double G - Chapter 3 An Accusation

The rescued man ate, drank, and from sheer fatigue fell asleep within five
minutes of the time he was shown his bedroom.

Since he was not of the easily discouraged kind, the deputy stayed to
supper on invitation of Lee. He sat opposite the daughter of his host, and
that young woman treated him with the most frigid politeness. The owner of
the Bar Double G was quite unaware of any change of temperature. Jack and
his little girl had always been the best of friends. So now he discoursed
on the price of cows, the good rains, the outrages of the rustlers, and
kindred topics without suspecting that the attention of the young man was
on more personal matters.

Though born in Arizona, Melissy was of the South. Due westward rolls the
tide of settlement, and Beauchamp Lee had migrated from Tennessee after
the war, following the line of least resistance to the sunburned
territory. Later he had married a woman a good deal younger than himself.
She had borne him two children, the elder of whom was now a young man.
Melissy was the younger, and while she was still a babe in arms the mother
had died of typhoid and left her baby girl to grow up as best she might in
a land where women were few and far. This tiny pledge of her mother's love
Champ Lee had treasured as a gift from Heaven. He had tended her and
nursed her through the ailments of childhood with a devotion the most pure
of his reckless life. Given to heady gusts of passion, there had never
been a moment when his voice had been other than gentle and tender to
her.