In the Garden of the Gods

The sound of a revolver cracked into my sombre discontent. Hard on its echoes came the slap of running feet, and, as I guessed, the swish of petticoats. A raucous command to stop brought me to my feet instantly. It also brought the runner to a halt just out of my sight beyond the shoulder of the hill.

“I dare you to touch me,” panted a high-pitched voice that struck in me a bell of recognition.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” replied he of the hoarse bellow, soothingly. “You know that mighty well.”

“If you put a finger on me I’ll cry for help.”

“There wouldn’t anybody hear, Miss,” replied the heavy bass.

“You—you coward!” Her voice was like a whip.

“Oh, you can call me anything you like but you got to go along with me, Miss,” he said sullenly.

“I’ll not go a step.”

“I reckon you got to go, lady.”

“May I go, too?” My contribution to the conversation came from the knoll just above them.

They whirled as at the press of a button. The man was a huge hulking fellow in corduroys, but he did not look the villain by a long shot. Indeed, his guileless face, lit with amazement at my words, begged to offer a guarantee of honesty. Here certainly was no finished desperado. The first glimpse of him relieved my mind. We were in no personal danger at least.

“Who in time are you?” he wanted to know.

“Tavis Q. Damron, at your service. And you—since introductions are going?”

The young woman—she was a Miss Katherine Gray, stopping at the same hotel as I at Manitou—promptly took the opportunity to slip behind my back. For me, I was in a glow of triumph. It had not been twenty-four hours since Miss Gray had informed me that she meant never to speak again to me. And already the favoring gods had brought her to me on the run. In my relation I felt myself a match for a score of lowering countrymen.

“He shot at me,” she cried over my shoulder.

“It went off accidentally,” protested the man.

“I don’t care. He shot.”

“He’ll not do it again,” I promised, complacently.

My unlucky triumph must have crept into my voice. I felt her appraise with deliberate eye my sixty-six scant inches. Nothing “hips” me more than an inference that I am short. To be sure, I am not a giant physically. Neither was Napoleon.

“I’m sorry not to meet with your approbation,” I said huffily.

“Oh, I did not say that. It would be unjust. You can’t help being little,” she was pleased to say, and I swear I heard the chuckle in her voice.

“Any more than you can help being offensive when you are in the humor.”

“Don’t take it so to heart. You may grow yet. You are very young, you know.”

“Perhaps I am de trop. Very likely you were looking for somebody else when you came galloping down the hill,” I said sulkily.

“I was looking for a man.” Her casual eye swept the valley. Tavis Q. Damron really did not appear to be on the map.

“I am certain you will not have to look long,” I assured her with excessive politeness.

“Thank you.” She glanced scornfully at me. “I suppose you mean that for a compliment? I think it impertinent, if you want to know.”

It was odd how we had almost forgotten the presence of our friend in corduroys; yet not so strange either, for he looked the picture of awkward indecision, much more the detected schoolboy than the “bad man” bandit. His fat, red hand, wandering restlessly about, included us in its orbit.

“I say, my man! Put up that gun! You make me nervous,” I barked.

“It might go off again accidentally,” suggested Miss Gray derisively. “We can’t risk Mr. Damron’s fainting. I suppose you have no restoratives with you, Mr. Corduroy?”

There came a shout from the cliff five hundred feet above. A man standing on the edge was beckoning to us.

“Somebody appears to want us to come and to share his beautiful view,” I said.

Corduroy’s indecision came to an end. “I guess we better be going back, Miss.”

“I thought I understood her to say she did not care to go back,” I said, eyeing him steadily.

Corduroy shifted uneasily. “She hadn’t any call to run away. Her father’s up there.”

“He’s a prisoner,” explained Miss Gray.

I gasped. “A prisoner?”

“Yes. Mr. Halloway is keeping him on that cliff and won’t let him leave,” she said, quite calmly.

“Halloway! Bob Halloway?”

She nodded defiantly. “Yes, Bob Halloway.”