"That's ce'tainly good hearing," was his ironical response."How comehe to get hurt, did y'u say?"
His sleek smile was a thing hateful to see."A hound bit me," explained the sheepman.
"Y'u don't say! I reckon y'u oughtn't to have got in its way.Did y'u killit?"
"Not yet."
"That was surely a mistake, for it's liable to bite again."The girl felt a sudden sickness at his honeyed cruelty, but immediatelypulled herself together.For whatever fiendish intention might be in his mind she meant to frustrate it.
"I hear you are of a musical turn, Mr.Bannister.Won't you play for us?"She had by chance found his weak spot.Instantly his eyes lit up.He stepped across to the piano and began to look over the music, though not so intently that he forgot to keep under his eye the man on the lounge.
"H'm! Mozart, Grieg, Chopin, Raff, Beethoven.Y'u ce'tainly have the music here; I wonder if y'u have the musician." He looked her over with a bold, unscrupulous gaze."It's an old trick to have classical music on the rack and ragtime in your soul.Can y'u play these?""You will have to be the judge of that," she said.
He selected two of Grieg's songs and invited her to the piano.He knew instantly that the Norwegian's delicate fancy and lyrical feeling had found in her no inadequate medium of expression.The peculiar emotional quality of the song "I Love Thee" seemed to fill the room as she played.When she swung round on the stool at its conclusion it was to meet a shining-eyed, musical enthusiast instead of the villain she had left five minutes earlier.
"Y'u CAN play," was all he said, but the manner of it spoke volumes.
For nearly an hour he kept her at the piano, and when at last he let her stop playing he seemed a man transformed.
"You have given me a great pleasure, a very great pleasure, Miss Messiter," he thanked her warmly, his Western idiom sloughed with his villainy for the moment."It has been a good many months since I have heard any decent music.With your permission I shall come again."Her hesitation was imperceptible."Surely, if you wish." She felt it would be worse than idle to deny the permission she might not be able to refuse.
With perfect grace he bowed, and as he wheeled away met with a little shock of remembrance the gaze of his cousin.For a long moment their eyes bored into each other.Neither yielded the beat of an eyelid, but it was the outlaw that spoke.
"I had forgotten y'u.That's strange, too because it was for y'u I came.I'm going to take y'u home with me.
"Alive or dead?" asked the other serenely."Alive, dear Ned.""Same old traits cropping out again.There was always something feline about y'u.I remember when y'u were a boy y'u liked to torment wild animals y'u had trapped.""I play with larger game now--and find it more interesting.""Just so.Miss Messiter, I shall have to borrow a pony from y'u, unless--" He broke off and turned indifferently to the bandit.
"Yes, I brought a hawss along with me for y'u," replied the other to the unvoiced question."I thought maybe y'u might want to ride with us.""But he can't ride.He couldn't possibly.It would kill him," the girl broke out.
