But to think that she had given her heart so suddenly and
so freely to this stranger was a shock. Hervey reaped the harvest of
their alarmed glances with a vast inward content. Every look he met
was an incipient gun levelled at the head of Red Jim.
"Didn't make no bones about it," he said, "she plumb begged for him.
Well, boys, she ain't going to get him. I think too much of old man
Jordan to let his girl run off with a man-killing vagabond like this
Perris. He's good looking and he talks dead easy. That's what's turned
the trick. I guess the rest of you would back me up?"
The answer was a growl.
"I'll go bust his neck," said Little Joe furiously. "One of them
heart-breakers, I figure."
"First thing," said the foreman, "is to see that she don't get to him.
If she does, she'll sure run off with him. But she's easy kept from
that. Joe, you and Shorty watch the hoss corrals to-night, will you?
And don't let her get through to a hoss by talking soft to you."
They vowed that they would be adamant. They vowed it with many oaths.
In fact, the rage of the cowpunchers was steadily growing. Red Perris
was more than a mere insolent interloper who had dared to scoff at the
banded powers of the Valley of the Eagles.
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