cow--I didn't want to," she broke out.
"It was your horse; _his_ idea, his alone."

There was such fine, shy commiseration in his face as she rose that she
laughed again.

"Of course it must have been Cooney's fault," he said. "I might have
known that. He used to have to drive her in every day." He regarded her
for a moment with a sort of dumb chivalry, then politely offered his
hand, saying, with a curious little air of taught formality: "I'm very
glad to see you. Thank you so much for coming!"

In avoiding each other's eyes, as their hands fell apart, they both
looked out to the person who stooped busily over a deer hide in the
shade of the big hemlock. His view of the circumstance was revealing
itself. Only his rounded back could be seen, but this rose and fell in
the rapid, rhythmic convulsions of silent laughter. They turned quickly
back to each other and smiled in a sudden sympathy with his mirth.

"If I may have a glass of water--" she suggested, as a device for
establishing ease between them.

"Of course!" He called to the person under the tree, arresting the back
at the height of one of its recurrent spasms. The face turned upon them
was rigidly sad, a face of almost saturnine solemnity, the face of one
who has been brought to view life as an engine of woe. As he ambled
dejectedly toward them, his head bowed from his work-bent shoulders, the
lines of grief in his face seemed to deepen, and a gnarled hand tugged
at the already drooping ends of his long mustache, as if he would be
assured that they, also, testified to the world's objectionableness.

"Mr. Crider, this is Mrs. Laithe--she has come to see us." The youth
achieved this with austere formality. The sad one nodded and put forth
his hand with a funereal "Glad to know you, ma'am!" as if they met at
the open grave of a friend.

"Ben, won't you go to the spring and get her some fresh water? She's
thirsty. She's had a hard ride."

The other turned quickly away, and there was a sound as if he had
manfully stifled a sob. Ewing faced his guest with eyes that twinkled a
bit, she thought, beneath their apologetic droop.

"I'd be glad to have you come inside," he ventured.

CHAPTER III

A PRIVATE VIEW

From the first room, a kitchen and general living room, such as she had
learned to know in the other ranch houses, he conducted her up two steps
to a doorway, from which he pushed aside a Navajo blanket with its rude
coloring of black and red.