dragging a
rocking chair out upon the porch. She returned immediately, smiling at
him.

"Your chair is ready," she said. "I think you had better not exert
yourself very much to-day."

"Why, ma'am," he expostulated, "I'm feelin' right well. I reckon I
could be travelin' now. I ain't used to bein' babied this way."

"I don't think you are being 'babied,'" she returned a trifle coldly.
"I don't think that I would waste any time with anyone if I thought it
wasn't necessary. I am merely telling you to remain for your own good.
Of course, if you wish to disregard my advice you may do so."

He smiled with a frank embarrassment and limped toward the door. "Why,
ma'am," he said regretfully as he reached the door, "I cert'nly don't
want to do anything which you think ain't right, after what you've done
for me. I don't want to belittle you, an' I think that when I said
that I might have been gassin' a little. But I thought mebbe I'd been
enough trouble already."

It was not entirely the confession itself, but the self-accusing tone
in which it had been uttered that brought a smile to her face.

"All the same," she said, "you are to do as I tell you."

He smiled as he dropped into the chair on the porch. It was an odd
experience for him. Never before in his life had anyone adopted toward
him an air of even partial proprietorship. He had been accustomed to
having people--always men--meet him upon a basis of equality, and if a
man had adopted toward him the tone that she had employed there would
have been an instant severing of diplomatic relations and a beginning
of hostilities.

But this situation was odd--a woman had ordered him to do a certain
thing and he was obeying, realizing that in doing so he was violating a
principle, though conscious of a strange satisfaction. He knew that he
had promised the Two Diamond manager, and he was convinced that, in
spite of the pain in his foot, he was well enough to ride. But he was
not going to ride; her command had settled that.

For a long time he sat in the chair, looking out over a great stretch
of flat country which was rimmed on three sides by a fringe of low
hills, and behind him by the cottonwood. The sun had been up long; it
was swimming above the rim of distant hills--a ball of molten silver in
a shimmering white blur. The cabin was set squarely in the center of a
big clearing, and about an eighth of a mile behind him was a river--the
river that he had bee