His candidly honest face was troubled.  He was not sure that Thornton was the same man who so short a time ago had shot Bert Stone.  It did not seem reasonable to Hap Smith that a man, having successfully made his play, would return just to court trouble.

“If you’re on the square, Buck,” he said in a moment, “throw down your gun an’ let’s see the linin’ of your pockets!”

“Yes?” retorted Thornton.  “What else, Mr. Smith?”

“Let us take a squint at that bandana trailin’ out’n your back pocket,” said Smith crisply.  “If it ain’t got deep holes cut in it!”

Now that was stupid, thought Winifred.  Nothing could be more stupid, in fact.  If this man had committed the crime and had thus voluntarily returned to the road house, he would be prepared.  He would have emptied his pockets, he certainly would have had enough brains to dispose of so tell-tale a bit of evidence as a handkerchief with slits let into it.

“Maybe,” said Thornton quietly, and she did not detect the contemptuous insolence under the slow words until he had nearly completed his meaning, “you’d like to have me tell you where I’m riding from and why?  And maybe you’d like to have me take off my shoes so you can look in them for your lost treasures?” Now was his contempt unhidden.  He strode quickly across the room, coming to the fireplace where the girl sat.  He took the handkerchief from his pocket, keeping it rolled up in his hand; stooping forward he dropped it into the fire, well behind the back log.

Then for the first time he saw her face plainly.  As he had come close to her she had slipped from her chair and stood now, her face lifted, looking at him.  His gaze was arrested as his eyes met hers.  He stood very still, plainly showing the surprise which he made no slightest effort to disguise.  She flushed, bit her lip, went a fiery red.  He put up his hand and removed his hat.

“I didn’t expect,” he said, still looking at her with that intent, openly admiring acknowledgment of her beauty, “to see a girl like you.  Here.”

The thing which struck her was that still there were men in the room who were armed and distrustful of him and that he had forgotten them.  What she could not gauge was the full of the effect she had had upon him.  He had marked a female form at the fireside, shawled by a shapeless patchwork quilt; out of it, magically it seemed to his startled fancies, there had stepped a superb creature with eyes on fire with her youth, a superlatively lovely creature, essentially feminine.  From the flash of her eyes to the curl of her hair, she was all girl.  And to Buck Thornton, man’s man of the wide open country beyond the mountains, who had set his eyes upon no woman for a half year, who had looked on no woman of her obvious class and type for two years, who had seen the woman of one half her physical loveliness and tugging charm never, the effect was instant and tremendous.  A little shiver went through him; his eyes caught fire.