CHAPTER XVII--A BATTLE IN A GIRL'S HEART

"Betty, I want to tell you something," he said, unconsciously urging Bouncer nearer to the girl's mount. "These weeks you have been here at Canyon Pass have been the greatest in my life."

The girl looked at him in a startled way.

"This is a big country, it is true. Big things are done out here--great accomplishments achieved--fortunes won. And I have always meant to do my part in it--both as to making money and winning the better things of life for myself. I want to see things that are already started, developed, to watch Canyon Pass grow--in a spiritual as well as a material sense.

"But something else has got hold of me, Betty. I was living a pretty wild life before you and Willie came out here. I wrote him I was. I kind of gloried in being a roughneck, I reckon," he added with a wry smile. "But all that's changed with me now, Betty--since you came."

"Mr. Hurley--Joe!" gasped the girl.

But he raised his hand gently in protest. The gesture asked her to wait--to hear him through.

"I've got another object in life--another reason for working and striving. I reckon a man never does know quite what he's aimin' to do until he sets a mark before him that isn't altogether selfish. I want to get ahead just as much as ever--more so. But I want to accomplish what I'm aimin' at for something higher than just the satisfaction of seeing the Great Hope pay big and know that folks say Joe Hurley has made a ten-strike!"

"You--you will be successful, Joe," she murmured.

"That's up to you, I reckon," the man said abruptly. "I'm aimin' to accomplish all this--winning a fortune, helping to put Canyon Pass on the map, and all--for you, Betty. Just for you."

"Mr. Hurley! Joe! Don't!" the girl suddenly exclaimed.

Her face had grown rosy when she began to understand fully what he was coming to, and then it paled. As she listened to his final outburst the grieved expression that contracted her lips and dimmed her eyes shocked him. Before she could speak he knew what answer he was to receive.

"Don't say anything more--please!" she begged. "It's all wrong. I never thought this--this would happen. Why, I thought we were just friends."

"Betty!" ejaculated the man in a tone that wrung the girl's heart. "Betty, haven't I got a chance with you? I know I'm not worthy----"

"Oh! Oh! Don't put it that way, Joe," she pleaded. "It really isn't that!"

"What's the matter with me then?" he demanded. "Do you want time to think it over? Or--wait! Betty, is--is it because you left some one back East?"

The girl was silent. She turned her head so that he might not see her face. But Hurley waited. She had to answer--and the halting word was uttered as though it were wrenched from her.

"Yes."

Hurley drew in his breath sharply, and then he was likewise silent. A minute dragged by. She stole a glance at him at last. He was staring steadily at her left hand. She had removed her glove, and the hand rested bare upon her pony's neck. Suddenly her face flamed again.

"Oh! I do not wear his--his ring," she said hoarsely. "There--there is a reason. I----"

"I am not prying into your private affairs, Miss Betty," Hurley said quickly. "Only--I am sorry I did not know before. Willie never said a word to warn me."

"He does not know!" ejaculated the girl. "I--I do not want him to know."

"He won't learn it from me. Don't fear," said Hurley rather roughly.

"Oh, Mr. Hurley! I am so--so sorry," whispered the girl.

The man, with drooping shoulders and hanging head, sat his horse, a statue of disappointment. He did not move or look at her, as she wheeled her own mount.

"I--I think I would like to ride back alone, Mr. Hurley. You--you won't mind? Afterward I hope we may be quite as good friends as heretofore. I do appreciate your friendship--Joe."

Betty could not easily miss the way back. The trail was perfectly plain. She rode fast at first, for with all her sorrow for Joe Hurley's disappointment, she could not bear him near her now.

Because she had no thought of ever considering him other than a friend, the girl, who was after all quite inexperienced, had not dreamed Hurley would come to regard her warmly. She could not understand how it had happened. It seemed unbelievable!

Love--romance; a lover--happiness; these things were not for Betty Hunt. She had long ago told herself this. She was devoted to one man only, her brother. And when he would no longer need her, if that time ever came, she expected to follow a lonely trail.

It was not merely Joe Hurley that she could not marry. She could not marry any man.

She came out of the majestic forest and reached the open stretch of the trail from Hoskins. This she followed toward the wagon track which edged the brink of the Overhang. She had brought her pony to a quieter pace and jogged along, deep in her unhappy thoughts. Suddenly, turning a clump of brush, she quite involuntarily drew in her pony and halted. There was a rider on the trail ahead of her, a stranger.

It was for only a moment that Betty saw him. Horse and rider were plunging down a steep declivity beside the trail into a thick copse. Had he heard her pony and was he seeking to escape observation? The girl was impressed with this possibility.

She rode on again, but very cautiously. She held a firm grip upon her pony's rein. Suppose the stranger should suddenly spur his horse into the trail again and halt her? From the moment her brother had decided to come West, and she knew she must attend him, Betty had been fearful of just such a meeting as she visualized now.

She half turned her mount, tempted to fly back toward the river and Joe. There was something very comforting in the thought of Joe's nearness. Perhaps, if she waited here, he would overtake her. At least, he might come into sight.

Then the thought entered her disturbed mind that possibly Hurley had gone home another way. He knew the country well. He might not follow the only trail she knew by which to reach Canyon Pass.

With this to spur her, the girl urged her mount forward. No use in waiting. The place must be passed. She could see no movement of the brush where the stranger and his horse had disappeared. But she felt that he was there!

Again she gathered up the pony's reins and held them firmly. She gripped her whip, too, and prepared for a dash. But she continued to walk her horse.

She was on the _qui vive_ for a quick start. Her eyes searched the brush in the little ravine. Suddenly she saw something that was not vegetation.

She rode on, but she was more and more disturbed by this object at the edge of the brush. Then, of a sudden, she realized what it was. It was the upper part of a man's face. The hatbrim covered all his hair and cut off much of his forehead; a branch hid all below the point of his nose.

And yet this patch of face shocked Betty. It seemed that she recognized it! Was it--could it be----

The blood pounded in her temples; her eyes were suffused. At that moment she could not have spurred her pony had the lurker in the brush sprung forth into her path!

Then he moved. She gained a clear glimpse of his entire face before he dodged again out of sight. His hair rolled upon the collar of his shirt and he wore a mustache, but no beard. Betty felt sudden relief.

"It is never Wilkenson--never!" she murmured. "Never him!"

She knew that her terror had been born in her own mind rather than of any external danger. The man was nothing to her--no one she had ever seen. She rode on finally with a sudden access of courage--a feeling that often comes to one when a peril has been successfully surmounted.

Indeed when, a little later and in sight of the broader wagon-track, she heard the pattering hoofs behind her she was not startled. At first she thought it was Joe Hurley. Then she recognized the fact that there was more than one horse coming. Even at that she felt confidence.

She turned to look, and saw three roughly dressed fellows pounding along the trail on tired and sweating steeds. One of the men had an authoritative air. It was he who addressed her, sweeping off his hat in the same way that Joe Hurley was wont to offer greeting.

"I say, miss," said the man, "have you seen a feller riding this yere way--couldn't be long ago? Mebbe an hour?"

"What--what man?" she hesitated. "I rode along here some time ago with Mr. Joe Hurley----"

"Shucks, ma'am! I ain't after him," replied the man. "I know Joe mighty well. And if you are a friend of his, you pass. I'm the sheriff of Cactus County, and me and my deputies are after a yaller hound that bamfoozled some honest men out of their hard earnings. He's got the gold, and we want both him and it! We been trailing him two days."

Betty trembled so inwardly that she could say nothing; but luckily the sheriff did not consider there was anything she could say.

"If you and Joe Hurley come along from Canyon Pass, you'd have seen this feller, if he'd gone that way. And I'm mighty sure he wouldn't aim for the Pass. I reckon, boys, Lamberton is our best bet. Good-day to ye, ma'am."

He removed his hat again, and the other two did the same. But they did not ride south at the fork of the trail without casting back more than one admiring glance at the trim figure and quietly beautiful face of Betty Hunt.

She cantered away on the Canyon Pass trail. She had something else to think of now. By keeping silent had she aided a thief to escape the hands of justice? But, then, perhaps she had saved a man's life as well!