No ray
of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his
heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk
turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though
the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long
silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a
whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication.
"I've been alone so much," he said. "It seems I have never been
anything but alone. And--sooner or later--it gets you--it gets you."

"You have the boy," ventured the doctor.

"No," he answered, almost fiercely. "That would be different, I could
stand it then. But I haven't got him, and I can't get him. He
despises me because--because I take too much at times." He paused as
though wondering whether to proceed with this unwonted confidence, but
the ache in his heart insisted on its right to human sympathy. "No, it
ain't that," he continued. "He despises me because he thinks I wasn't
fair to his mother. He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that
there's things--pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as
a steer chokin' in his lasso. I was like that. I wanted to be good to
her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer
under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't
understand." The old man got up and stood at the western window,
watching the gold of approaching sunset gather on the mountains. . . .
"He despises me." Then, after a long silence, "No matter. I despise
myself."

The doctor approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. But Elden was
himself again. The curtains of his life, which he had drawn apart for
a moment, he whipped together again rudely, almost viciously, and
covered his confusion by plunging into a tale of how he had led a breed
suspected of cattle rustling on a little canter of ten miles with a
rope about his neck and the other end tied to the saddle. "He ran
well," said the old man, chuckling still at the reminiscence. "And it
was lucky he did. It was a strong rope."

The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene
appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from
the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a
willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select
for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their
first