all," remarked the son coolly.

"Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but
you'll be glad you didn't do it."

Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to
himself.

"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a
sudden blaze of scorn.

"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you--leaving you
for a _man_!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand
to his neck.

"You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she.
She wouldn't have you----"

"Ah--she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why--she's--" He broke off,
glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her----"

A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the
room.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TURNING OF COONEY

When she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle Cooney.
The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked
loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her
own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a
moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little
horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to
grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from
one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he
galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of
his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had
come before the thing was done.

She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a
night's ride at Cooney's best trail pace, and in a region rough and
untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were
no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or
scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called
harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed
her from a few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But
there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket,
admiring its denseness, not notable in any way, but casual, improbable
to the searching eye.

"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such,
done with all fighting. It was good to anticipate the thing, the
restfulness of extinction--or not, as that might be. That was no matter.
She was beaten in this life. It was good