Man to Man | Page 4

over his shoulder, "if I happened to
need a makeshift dressing-gown. As it is, however, I am trying to get
my spur out of the thing."
"You great big brute!" she wailed at him, and here she came running
along the bank. "You just dare to tear my cloak and I'll hound you out
of the country for it! I drove forty miles to get it and this is the first
time I ever wore it. Stupid!" And she jerked both the garment and the
spur from him.
The lining was silken, of a deep, rich, golden hue. And already it was
torn, although but the tiniest bit in the world, by one of the sharp spikes.
Her temper, however, ever ready it seemed, flared out again; the
crinkling merriment went from her eyes, leaving no trace; the color
warmed in her cheeks as she cried:
"You're just like all of the rest of your breed, big and awkward,
crowding in where you don't belong, messing up the face of the earth,

spoiling things right and left. I wonder if the good Lord Himself knows
what he made men for, anyway!"
The offending spur, detached by her quick fingers, described a bright
arc in the late sunlight, flew far out, dipped in a little leaping spurt of
spray, and went down quietly in the lake.
"Go jump in and get that, if you are so keen on saving things," she
mocked him. "There's only, about fifteen feet of water to dig through."
"You little devil!" he said.
For the spur with its companion had cost him twenty dollars down on
the Mexican border ten days ago and he had set much store by it.
"Little devil, am I?" she retorted readily. "You'll know it if you don't
keep on your side of the road. Look at that tear! Just look at it!"
She had stepped quite close to him, holding out the cloak, her eyes
lifted defiantly to his. He put out a sudden hand and laid it on her wet
shoulder. She opened her eyes widely again at the new look in his. But
even so her regard was utterly fearless.
"Young lady," he said sternly, "so help me God, I've got the biggest
notion in the world to take you across my knee and give you the
spanking of your life. If I did crowd in where I don't belong, as you so
sweetly put it, it was at least to do you a kindness. Another time I'd
know better; I'd sooner do a favor for a wildcat."
"Take your dirty paws off of me," she cried, wrenching away from him.
"And--spank me, would you?" The fire leaped higher in her eyes, the
red in her cheeks gave place to an angrier white. "If you ever so much
as dare touch me again----"
She broke off, panting. Packard laughed at her.
"You'd try to scratch me, I suppose," he jeered; "and then, after the
fashion of your own sweet sex when you don't have the strength to put

a thing across, you'd most likely cry!"
"I'd blow your ugly head off your shoulders with a shot-gun," she
concluded briefly.
And despite the extravagance of the words it was borne in upon
Packard's understanding that she meant just exactly what she said.
He was getting colder all the time and knew that in a moment his teeth
would chatter. So a second time he turned his back on her, gathered up
his horse's reins, and moved away, seeking a spot in the woods where
he could get dry and sun his clothes. And since Packard rage comes
swiftly and more often than not goes the same way, within five minutes
over a comforting cigarette he was grinning widely, seeing in a flash all
of the humor of the situation which had successfully concealed itself
from him until now.
"And I don't blame her so much, after all," he chuckled. "Taking a nice,
lonely dive, to have a fool of a man grab her all of a sudden when she
was enjoying herself half a dozen feet under water! It's enough to stir
up a good healthy temper. Which, by the Lord, she has!"
CHAPTER II
MISS BLUE CLOAK KNOWS WHEN SHE'S BEAT
Half an hour later, his clothing wrung out and sun-dried after a fashion,
Packard dressed, swung up into the saddle, and turned back into the
trail. And through the trees, where their rugged trunks made an open
vista, he saw not two hundred yards away the gay spot of color made
by the blue cloak. So she was still here, lingering down the road that
wound about the lake's shores, when already he had fancied her far on
her way. He wondered for the first time where that way