It is on record that neither of them
uttered two dozen words between eight o'clock and ten, so bitterly was
the presence of the other resented.
March came, and with it, to the intense amazement of Anderson Crow, the
ever-mysterious thousand dollars, a few weeks late. On a certain day the
old marshal took Rosalie to Boggs City, and the guardianship proceedings
were legally closed. Listlessly she accepted half of the money he had
saved, having refused to take all of it. She was now her own mistress,
much to her regret if not to his.
"I may go on living with you, Daddy Crow, may I not?" she asked
wistfully as they drove home through the March blizzard. "This doesn't
mean that I cannot be your own little girl after to-day, does it?"
"Don't talk like that, Rosalie Gray, er I'll put you to bed 'thout a
speck o' supper," growled he in his most threatening tones, but the
tears were rolling down his cheeks at the time.
"Do you know, daddy, I honestly hope that the big city detective won't
find out who I am," she said after a long period of reflection.
"Cause why?"
"Because, if he doesn't, you won't have any excuse for turning me out."
"I'll not only send you to bed, but I'll give you a tarnation good
lickin' besides if you talk like--"
"But I'm twenty-one. You have no right," said she so brightly that he
cracked his whip over the horse's back and blew his nose twice for full
measure of gratitude.
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