"Miss Rayner, I can't blame you for takin' Al's word against mine," said Beasley. "An' your stand is natural. But you're a stranger here an' you know nothin' of stock deals in these ranges. It ain't fair to speak bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by stealin' sheep an' unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher I know. It was mine. An' we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin'."
Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.
"Talk's cheap anywhere, an' in the West talk ain't much at all," continued Beasley. "I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this.... Let's marry an' settle a bad deal thet way."
The man's direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying consideration for her woman's attitude, was amazing, ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.
"Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can't accept your offer," she replied.
"Would you take time an' consider?" he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.
"Absolutely no."
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.
"Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off," he said.
"Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You can't put me off."
"An' why can't I?" he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
"Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it," declared Helen, forcibly.
"Who 're you goin' to prove it to--thet I'm dishonest?"
"To my men--to your men--to the people of Pine--to everybody. There's not a person who won't believe me."
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.
"An' how 're you goin' to prove all thet?" he growled.
"Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with his gang up in the woods--and hired him to make off with me?" asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.