However, this new situation had removed the diffidence that had affected her; their relations were less matter of fact and more romantic, and she felt toward him as any woman feels who knows an admirer pursues her—­breathless with the wonder of it, but holding aloof, tantalizing, whimsical, and uncertain of herself.

She looked at him challengingly, mockery in her eyes.

“So you came here because the Drifter told you there would be trouble—­and a woman.  How perfectly delightful!”

He sensed her mood and responded to it.

“It’s sure delightful.  But it ain’t unusual.  I’ve always heard that trouble will be lurkin’ around where there’s a woman.”

“But you would not say that a woman is not worth the trouble she causes?” she countered.

“A man is willin’ to take her—­trouble an’ all,” he responded, looking straight at her.

“Yes—­if he can get her!” she shot back at him.

“Mostly every woman gets married to a man.  I’ve got as good a chance as any other man.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re talkin’ to me about it,” he grinned.  “If you wasn’t considerin’ me you wouldn’t argue with me about it; you’d turn me down cold an’ forget it.”

“I suppose when a man is big and romantic-looking——­”

“Oh, shucks, ma’am; you’ll be havin’ me gettin’ a swelled head.”

“He thinks that all he has to do is to look his best.”

“I expect I’ve looked my worst since I’ve been here.  I ain’t had a chance to do any moonin’ at you.”

“I don’t like men that ‘moon,’” she declared.

“That’s the reason I didn’t do it,” he said.

She laughed.  “Now, tell me,” she asked, “how you got your name, ‘Deal.’  It had something to do with cards, I suppose?”

“With weight,” he said, looking soberly at her.  “When I was born my dad looked at me sort of nonplussed.  I was that big.  ’There’s a deal of him,’ he told my mother.  An’ the name stuck.  That ain’t a lot mysterious.”

“It was a convenient name to attach the ‘Square’ to,” she said.

“I’ve earned it,” he said earnestly.  “An’ I’ve had a mighty hard time provin’ my right to wear it.  There’s men that will tempt you out of pure deviltry, an’ others that will try to shoot such a fancy out of your system.  But I didn’t wear the ‘Square’ because I wanted to—­folks hung it onto me without me askin’.  That’s one reason I left Tombstone; I’d got tired of posin’ as an angel.”

He saw her face grow thoughtful and a haunting expression come into her eyes.

“You haven’t told me how he looked,” she said.

Sanderson lied.  He couldn’t tell her of the dissipation he had seen in her brother’s face, nor of the evilness that had been stamped there.  He drew a glowing picture of the man he had buried, and told her that had he lived her brother would have done her credit.