The Odds | Page 9

call that wrong--if you like."
She hid her face against him with a piteous gesture. "He--said he would come back, Jack."
Jack frowned over her bowed head even while he softly stroked it. "And if he had--do you think I would ever have let you go to him? A cattle thief, Dot! An outlaw!"
She clung to him trembling. "He saved my life--at the risk of his own," she whispered, almost inarticulately.
"Oh, I know--I know. He was that sort--brave enough, but a hopeless rotter." Jack's voice held a curious mixture of tenderness and contempt. "Women always fall in love with that sort of fellow," he said. "Heaven knows why. But you'd no right to lose your heart to him, little 'un. You knew--you always knew--he wasn't the man for you."
She clung to him in silence for a space, then lifted her face. "All right, Jack," she said.
He looked at her closely for a moment. "Come! It's only silly sentiment," he urged. "You can't feel bad about it after all this time. Why, child, it's five years!"
She laughed rather shakily. "I am a big fool, aren't I, Jack? Yet--somehow--do you know--I thought he meant to come back."
"Not he!" declared Jack. "Catch Buckskin Bill putting his head back into the noose when once he had got away! He's not quite so simple as that, my dear. He probably cleared out of Australia for good as soon as he got the chance. And a good thing, too!" he added, with emphasis. "He'd done mischief enough."
She raised her lips to his. "Thank you for not laughing at me, Jack," she said. "Don't--ever--tell Adela, will you? I'm sure she would."
He smiled a little. "Yes, I think she would. She'd say you were old enough to know better."
Dot nodded. "And very sensible, too. I am."
He patted her shoulder. "Good girl! Then that chapter is closed. And--you're going to give poor Fletcher his chance?"
She drew a sharp breath. "Oh, I don't know. I can't promise that. Don't--don't hustle me, Jack!"
He gave her a hard squeeze and let her go. "There, she shan't be teased by her horrid bully of a brother! She's going to play the game off her own bat, and I wish her luck with all my heart."
He turned to the job of feeding his horse, and Dot, after a few inconsequent remarks, sauntered away in the direction of the barn, "to be alone with herself," as she put it.
CHAPTER II
NUMBER THREE
Adela Burton was laying the cloth for supper, and looking somewhat severe over the process. She was usually cheerful at that hour of the day, for it brought her husband back from his work and, thanks to Dot's ministrations, the evening was free from toil. It was seldom, indeed, that Adela bestirred herself to lay the cloth for any meal, for she maintained that it was better for a girl like Dot to have plenty to do at all times, and she herself preferred her needlework, at which she was an adept.
No one could have called her an idle woman, but she was eminently a selfish one. She followed her own bent, quite regardless of the desires and inclinations of anyone else. She was the hub of her world from her own point of view, and she was wholly incapable of recognizing any other. Most people realized this and, as is the way of humanity, took her at her own valuation, making allowances for her undoubted egotism. For she was comely and had a taking manner, never troubling herself unless her own personal convenience were threatened. She laughed a good deal, though her sense of humour was none of the finest, and she was far too practical to possess any imagination. In short, as she herself expressed it, she was sensible; and, being so, she had small sympathy with her sister-in-law's foolish sentimentalities, which she considered wholly out of place in the everyday life at the farm.
Not that Dot ever dreamed of confiding in her. She sheltered herself invariably behind a reserve so delicate as to be almost imperceptible to the elder woman's blunter susceptibilities. But she could not always hide the fineness of her inner feelings, and there were times when the two clashed in consequence. The occasions were rare, but Adela had come to know by experience that when they occurred, opposition on her part was of no avail. Dot was bound to have her way when her soul was stirred to battle for it, as on the day when she had refused to let Robin, the dog, be chained up when not on duty with the sheep. Adela had objected to his presence in the house, and Dot had firmly insisted upon it on the score that Robin had always been an inmate as the companion and protector of her lonely hours.
Adela had disputed