The Lawless West Read Online Free

you…an’ fetch you out to the ranch.”
    “Thank you, but I…I expected to be met by Mister Owens,” she replied.
    “Ma’am, there’s been a mistake…I’ve got to tell you…there ain’t any Mister Owens,” blurted out Tex manfully.
    “Oh!” she said with a little start.
    “You see, it was this way,” went on the confused cowboy. “One of Springer’s cowboys…not me… wrote them letters to you, signin’ his name Owens. There ain’t no such named cowboy in this county. Your last letter…an’ here it is…fell into my hands…all by accident, ma’am, it sure was. I took my three friends heah…I took them into my confidence. An’ we all came down to meet you.”
    She moved her head and evidently looked at the strange trio of cowboys Tex had pointed out as his friends. They came forward then, but not eagerly, and they still held to each other. Their condition, not to consider their immense excitement, couldnot have been lost even upon a tenderfoot from Missouri.
    “Please…return my…my letter,” she said, turning again to Tex, and she put out a small gloved hand to take it from him. “Then…there is no Mister Frank Owens?”
    “No, ma’am, there ain’t,” replied Tex miserably.
    “Is there…no…no truth in his…is there no schoolteacher wanted here?” she faltered.
    “I think so, ma’am,” he replied. “Springer said he needed one. That’s what started the advertisement an’ the letters to you. You can see the boss an’…an’ explain. I’m sure it will be all right. He’s the grandest fellow. He won’t stand for no joke on a poor old schoolmarm.”
    In his bewilderment he had spoken his thoughts, and that last slip made him look more miserable than ever, and made the boys appear ready to burst.
    “Poor old schoolmarm,” echoed Miss Stacey. “Perhaps the deceit has not been wholly on one side.”
    Whereupon she swept aside the enveloping veil to reveal a pale and pretty face. She was young. She had clear gray eyes and a sweet sensitive mouth. Little curls of chestnut hair straggled from under her veil. And she had tiny freckles.
    Tex stared at this apparition.
    “But you…you…the letter says she wasn’t over forty!” he ejaculated.
    “She’s not,” rejoined Miss Stacey curtly.
    Then there were visible and remarkable indications of a transformation in the attitude of the cowboy. But the approach of a stranger suddenly seemed to paralyze him. This fellow was very tall. He strolled up to them. He was booted and spurred. Hehalted before the group and looked expectantly from the boys to the young woman and back again. But at the moment the four cowboys appeared dumb.
    “Are you Mister Springer?” asked Miss Stacey.
    “Yes,” he replied, and he took off his sombrero. He had a dark frank face and keen eyes.
    “I am Jane Stacey,” she explained hurriedly. “I’m a schoolteacher. I answered an advertisement. And I’ve come from Missouri because of letters I received from a Mister Frank Owens of Springer’s Ranch. This young man met me. He has not been very…explicit. I gather that there is no Mister Owens…that I’m the victim of a cowboy joke. But he said that Mister Springer won’t stand for a joke on a poor old schoolmarm.”
    “I sure am glad to meet you, Miss Stacey,” responded the rancher with the easy Western courtesy that must have been comforting to her. “Please let me see the letters.”
    She opened a handbag and, searching in it, presently held out several letters. Springer never even glanced at his stricken cowboys. He took the letters.
    “No, not that one,” said Miss Stacey, blushing scarlet. “That’s one I wrote to Mister Owens, but didn’t mail. It’s…hardly necessary to read that.”
    While Springer read the others, she looked at him. Presently he asked for the letter she had taken back. Miss Stacey hesitated, then refused. He looked cool, curious, businesslike. Then his keen eyes swept over the four cowboys.
    “Tex, are you