“If she hain't queer I never seen no queer wimmin,” vouchsafed Shady Jones, and it would have been judged, by the way he wagged his head, that he had been all his days familiar with women.
Moze looked beyond words, and quite alarmed.
“I seen it comin',” declared Wilson, very much excited. “But I was scared to say so. You-all made fun of me aboot her. Now I shore wish I had spoken up.”
Anson nodded solemnly. He did not believe the evidence of his sight, but the facts seemed stunning. As if the girl were a dangerous and incomprehensible thing, he approached her step by step. Wilson followed, and the others appeared drawn irresistibly.
The girl drew her slight form up haughtily. Through her spreading tresses her eyes gleamed unnaturally upon the outlaw leader. But she deigned not to reply.
“Hey thar--you Rayner girl!” added Anson, lamely. “What's ailin' you?”
“My lord! did you address me?” she asked, loftily.
Shady Jones got over his consternation and evidently extracted some humor from the situation, as his dark face began to break its strain.
“Ophelia awaits your command, my lord. I've been gathering flowers,” she said, sweetly, holding up her empty hands as if they contained a bouquet.
Shady Jones exploded in convulsed laughter. But his merriment was not shared. And suddenly it brought disaster upon him. The girl flew at him.
“Why do you croak, you toad? I will have you whipped and put in irons, you scullion!” she cried, passionately.
Shady underwent a remarkable change, and stumbled in his backward retreat. Then she snapped her fingers in Moze's face.
Anson plucked up courage enough to touch her.
Probably he meant to try to humor her, but she screamed, and he jumped back as if she might burn him. She screamed shrilly, in wild, staccato notes.
“You! You!” she pointed her finger at the outlaw leader. “You brute to women! You ran off from your wife!”
Anson turned plum-color and then slowly white. The girl must have sent a random shot home.
“And now the devil's turned you into a snake. A long, scaly snake with green eyes! Uugh! You'll crawl on your belly soon--when my cowboy finds you. And he'll tramp you in the dust.”
She floated away from them and began to whirl gracefully, arms spread and hair flying; and then, apparently oblivious of the staring men, she broke into a low, sweet song. Next she danced around a pine, then danced into her little green inclosure. From which presently she sent out the most doleful moans.