Surrender

Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive confidence.

"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are even a rustler! You're a false alarm!"

Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat.

"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, Miss Purdy."

"Well, I don't. You don't look it."

"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am."

"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it."

"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented.

"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man."

"But if I promise to be one?"

"Oh, anybody can promise," she flung back, eyes bubbling with laughter.

"Wait till I get on my feet again."

A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust.

"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess.

That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance.