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“Lin, all the while I was talkin’ all I knowed to her, without knowin’ what I’d be sayin’ next, for it come that unexpected, she was lookin’ at me with them steady eyes. And all she says when I quit was, ‘If I saw him I would tell him to find a home.'”

“Didn’t she tell yu’ she’d made me promise to keep away from seeing her?” asked the cow-puncher.

Mrs. Lusk laughed. “Oh, you innocent!” said she.

“She said if I came she would leave Separ,” muttered McLean, brooding.

Again the large woman laughed out, but more harshly.

“I have kept my promise,” Lin continued.

“Keep it some more. Sit here rotting in your chair till she goes away. Maybe she’s gone.”

“What’s that?” said Lin. But still she only laughed harshly. “I could be there by to-morrow night,” he murmured. Then his face softened. “She would never do such a thing!” he said, to himself.

He had forgotten the woman at the table. While she had told him matters that concerned him he had listened eagerly. Now she was of no more interest than she had been before her story was begun. She looked at his eyes as he sat thinking and dwelling upon his sweetheart. She looked at him, and a longing welled up into her face. A certain youth and heavy beauty relighted the features.

“You are the same, same Lin everyways,” she said. “A woman is too many for you still, Lin!” she whispered.

At her summons he looked up from his revery.

“Lin, I would not have treated you so.”

The caress that filled her voice was plain. His look met hers as he sat quite still, his arms on the table. Then he took his turn at laughing.

“You!” he said. “At least I’ve had plenty of education in you.”

“Lin, Lin, don’t talk that brutal to me to-day. If yus knowed how near I come shooting myself with ‘Neighbor.’ That would have been funny!

“I knowed yus wanted to tear that pistol out of my hand because it was hern. But yus never did such things to me, fer there’s a gentleman in you somewheres, Lin. And yus didn’t never hit me, not even when you come to know me well. And when I seen you so unexpected again to-night, and you just the same old Lin, scaring Lusk with shooting them chickens, so comic and splendid, I could ‘a’ just killed Lusk sittin’ in the wagon. Say, Lin, what made yus do that, anyway?”

“I can’t hardly say,” said the cow-puncher. “Only noticing him so turruble anxious to quit me–well, a man acts without thinking.”

“You always did, Lin. You was always a comical genius. Lin, them were good times.”

“Which times?”

“You know. You can’t tell me you have forgot.”

“I have not forgot much. What’s the sense in this?”

“Yus never loved me!” she exclaimed.

“Shucks!”

“Lin, Lin, is it all over? You know yus loved me on Bear Creek. Say you did. Only say it was once that way.” And as he sat, she came and put her arms round his neck. For a moment he did not move, letting himself be held; and then she kissed him. The plates crashed as he beat and struck her down upon the table. He was on his feet, cursing himself. As he went out of the door, she lay where she had fallen beneath his fist, looking after him and smiling.

McLean walked down Box Elder Creek through the trees toward the stable, where Lusk had gone to put the horse in the wagon. Once he leaned his hand against a big cotton-wood, and stood still with half-closed eyes. Then he continued on his way. “Lusk!” he called, presently, and in a few steps more, “Lusk!” Then, as he came slowly out of the trees to meet the husband he began, with quiet evenness, “Your wife wants to know–” But he stopped. No husband was there. Wagon and horse were not there. The door was shut. The bewildered cow-puncher looked up the stream where the road went, and he looked down. Out of the sky where daylight and stars were faintly shining together sounded the long cries of the night hawks as they sped and swooped to their hunting in the dusk. From among the trees by the stream floated a cooler air, and distant and close by sounded the splashing water. About the meadow where Lin stood his horses fed, quietly crunching. He went to the door, looked in, and shut it again. He walked to his shed and stood contemplating his own wagon alone there. Then he lifted away a piece of trailing vine from the gate of the corral, while the turkeys moved their heads and watched him from the roof. A rope was hanging from the corral, and seeing it, he dropped the vine. He opened the corral gate, and walked quickly back into the middle of the field, where the horses saw him and his rope, and scattered. But he ran and herded them, whirling the rope, and so drove them into the corral, and flung his noose over two. He dragged two saddles–men’s saddles–from the stable, and next he was again at his cabin door with the horses saddled. She was sitting quite still by the table where she had sat during the meal, nor did she speak or move when she saw him look in at the door.