"You coward!" she interrupted, her voice thick with passion.
His lips whitened, but he smiled faintly.
"Coward! Coward!" she repeated, standing rigid before him, her hands clenched, her lips stiff with scorn.
He smiled resignedly and turned away. She stood watching him, hating him, hurling mental anathemas after him, until she saw him pass through the doorway of the bank. Then she turned to see Corrigan just getting up.
Not a man in the group across the street had moved. They, too, had watched Trevison go into the bank, and now their glances shifted to the girl and Corrigan. Their sympathies, she saw plainly, were with Trevison; several of them smiled as the easterner got to his feet.
Corrigan was pale and breathless, but he smiled at her and held her off when she essayed to help him brush the dust from his clothing. He did that himself, and mopped his face with a handkerchief.
"It wasn't fair," whispered the girl, sympathetically. "I almost wish that you had killed him!" she added, vindictively.
"My, what a fire-eater!" he said with a broad smile. She thought he looked handsomer with the dust upon him, than he had ever seemed when polished and immaculate.
"Are you badly hurt?" she asked, with a concern that made him look quickly at her.
He laughed and patted her arm lightly. "Not a bit hurt," he said. "Come, those men are staring."
He escorted her to the step of the private car, and lingered a moment there to make his apology for his part in the trouble. He told her frankly, that he was to blame, knowing that Trevison's action in riding him down would more than outweigh any resentment she might feel over his mistake in bringing about the clash in her presence.
She graciously forgave him, and a little later she entered the car alone; he telling her that he would be in presently, after he returned from the station where he intended to send a telegram. She gave him a smile, standing on the platform of the car, dazzling, eloquent with promise. It made his heart leap with exultation, and as he went his way toward the station he voiced a sentiment:
But his jaws set savagely as he approached the station. He did not go into the station, but around the outside wall of it, passing between it and another building and coming at last to the front of the bank building. He had noted that the black horse was still standing in front of the bank building, and that the group of men had dispersed. The street was deserted.