Part 3 (1/2)
His eyes remained rigid and relentless, but there was a slight twitching of his strongest feature, the wide, mobile mouth.
He looked at his watch.
”We can wait for a few minutes,” he said in a matter of fact voice.
”Please, may I get out and stretch?” she asked pleadingly.
Taking silence for consent, she climbed out of the car.
”Do you want a drink?” he asked, as he poured some water from an improvised Thermos bottle into a traveling cup.
”Thanks for those first kind words,” she exclaimed, taking the cup from him and drinking eagerly.
”Why didn't you say you were thirsty?” he asked in a resentful tone, without looking at her. He had, in fact, studiously refrained from looking at her throughout the journey.
”I'm not used to asking for anything,” she answered with a chuckle. ”I take what comes my way. 'Taking' is your job, too, isn't it?”
”To h.e.l.l with my job!” he broke out fiercely. ”I'd never have taken it if I knew it meant this.”
”It's your own fault,” she retorted. ”It wouldn't have been 'this' if you hadn't been so grouchy. We could have had a chummy little gabfest, if you hadn't been bunging holes in the landscape with your lamps all the way.”
He made no response but began to examine the workings of his car.
”Does the county furnish it to you?” she asked. ”It doesn't seem as if you'd pick out anything like this. Was it 'Made in America?' Funny outfit for a cowboy country, anyway.”
”Get in,” he commanded curtly. ”We must be away.”
”Oh, please, not yet,” she implored. ”It's so awful hot, and I won't have all this outdoors for a long time, I suppose. I see there's a tidy little bit of shade yonder. Let's go there and rest awhile. I'll be good; honest, I will, and when I get rested, you can hit a faster gait to even up. I get tired just the same as honest folks do. Come, now, won't you?”
In a flash she had taken advantage of this oasis of shade that beckoned enticingly to the pa.s.ser-by.
He followed reluctantly.
”This is Heaven let loose,” she said, lolling luxuriously against the trunk of a tree. ”You're the only nice sheriff man that ever run me in.”
He sat down near her and looked gloomily ahead.
”Cheer up!” she urged, after a short silence. ”It may not be so bad. Any one would think you were the prisoner instead of poor little me.”
”I wish I were,” he said shortly.
She looked at him curiously.
”Say, what's eating you, anyway? If you hate your job so, what did you take it for?”
”It was forced on me. I'm only sworn in as acting sheriff for the county until the sheriff returns.”
”How long you been 'it'?”
”Two weeks. You're my second--arrest.”
”Who was the first?”