"You don't have to knock me down, Miss Nan, to put me wise about a man's being keen on a girl. I'm a married man," declared McAlpin with modest pride. "He thought all the time he was fooling me, and keeping covered. Why, I laughed to myself at his tricks to get information without letting on! Now, that afternoon he came in here kind of moody. It was an anniversary for him, and a hard one--the day his father was shot from ambush--a good many years ago, but nary one of us had forgot it. Then he happened to see your pony--this same pony you're riding to-day--a-standing back there in the box-stall. He asked me whose it was; and he asked me about you, and, by jinx! the way he perked up when I told him you were coming in on the stage that afternoon! When he heard you'd been sick, he was for going down to the hotel to get a cup of coffee--for you!" McAlpin, like any good story-teller, was already on his feet again. "He did it," he exclaimed, "and you know what _he_ got when he stepped into the barroom." He took hold of de Spain's coat and held it aside to enter his exhibit. "There," he concluded, "is his cartridge-belt, hanging there yet. The boy is dead--why shouldn't I tell you?" Nan rode home much more excited, more bewildered than when she had ridden over. What should she do? It was already pretty clear to her that de Spain had not ridden unarmed to where she found him to ambush any of the Morgans. He was not dead; but he was not far from it if McAlpin was right and if she could credit her own senses in looking at him. What ought she to do? Other things McAlpin had said crowded her thoughts. Strangest shock of all that this man of all other men should profess to care for her. She had shown anger when McAlpin dared speak of it; at least, she thought she had. And she still did not know how, sufficiently, to resent the thought of such audacity on de Spain's part; but recalling all she could of his words and actions, she was forced to confess to herself that McAlpin's assertions were confirmed in them--and that what McAlpin had said interpreted de Spain's unvarying attitude toward her. This was, to say the least, a further awkward complication for her feelings. She already had enough to confuse them. CHAPTER XIV NAN DRIFTS Without going in to speak to Gale, whom Bull Page, his nurse, reported very cross but not hurt much, Nan left her packet for him and rode home. Her uncle Duke was in town. She had the house to herself, with only Bonita, the old Mexican serving-woman, and Nan ate her late supper alone.