“You have to take ’em the way they mean,” she added, philosophically. “That’s the way to git along with ’em.”
“You seem to know a great deal,” murmured Helen, wistfully. She felt somehow very young and inexperienced.
“I suppose you’ll see Mr. Gard when you get home,” she added, tentatively. “We—that is—Father was afraid he ought not to go so soon—on account of his foot. We hope it will be all right.”
Again Kate Hallard crushed down the little pang that would come.
“Mr. Gard, he took hold of a little piece o’ business for me...” she spoke very casually, “I reckon it’s bothering him a lot. I expect he wants to get done with it an’ git away from here. He’s been mighty kind about it.”
“Oh! He would be that.” Helen could not have explained why her heart seemed suddenly lighter. She was conscious of a quick, friendly feeling toward this woman of the desert.
“You’ll come again to see me, won’t you?” she asked, detaining her guest when the latter had swung to the saddle.
Kate Hallard hesitated. “I reckon I can’t git away from the grille much,” she said, evasively. “I never go nowhere much.”
The girl’s instinctive wisdom prompted her not to press the point then. She would let it wait, but her wistfulness sounded in her voice when she spoke again.
“At any rate we’re friends, are we not?” queried she, looking up into the black eyes.