straightness of back and even to the curl of his hair that
cast its dancing shadows upon the wall in front of him. She had never
had a man turn his back on her this way, and yet now the accomplished
deed struck her in nowise as boorish or rude. He had paid her the
tribute of a deep admiration, as clear and strong and unsullied as a
racing mountain stream in spring time. The few words which he deemed
necessary had passed between them. Then he had withdrawn himself from
her attention. Not rude, the act savoured somehow of the downright free
bigness of unconvention.

"It's silly, jumping to conclusions, any way," she informed herself.
"Why suspect him just because he wears the costume of the country, has
the usual red handkerchief in his possession and is tall? There are half
a dozen big red handkerchiefs in this room right now ... and this would
seem to be the land of tall men."

Only once again did he speak to her that night and then just to say in
plain matter-of-fact style: "You'd better lie down there and get some
sleep. Good night." And this remark had come only after fifteen minutes
of busy preparation on his part and curiosity on hers. He had gone out
of the room into the night with no offered explanation and with many
eyes following him; men began to show rising signs of excitement and to
regret audibly that they had not "gathered him in." But in a few minutes
he was back, his arms filled with loose hay from the barn. He spread it
out in a corner, down by the long table. The table itself he drew out of
the way. On the hay he smoothed out her quilt. Then, after a brief word
with Poke Drury, he made another expedition into the night, returning
with a strip of weather beaten, patched canvas; this he hung by the
corners from the nails he hammered into a beam of the low ceiling,
letting the thing drop partition-wise across the room. It had been then
that he said quietly: "You'd better lie down there and get some sleep.
Good night."

"Good night," she answered him. And as it was with his eyes that again
he told her frankly what he thought of her, so was it with her eyes that
she thanked him.

The night passed somehow. She lay down and slept, awoke, moved her body
for more comfort, slept again. And through her sleep and dreams and
wakeful moments she heard the quiet voices of the men who had no beds to
go to; that monotonous sound and an occasional clink of glass and
bottle neck or the rustling of shuffled cards. On