Gard laughed as he led Jinny ignominiously out of her green field.
“No reason why you shouldn’t be that man,” said he. “It’s government land, all ready to be entered upon.”
“If that’s a fact,” was Sandy’s reply, “an’ you ain’t got no intentions on it, then Sandy Larch, cow-punch, is likely to blossom out as A. Larch, rancherio. Can’t you see me a swellin’ señor?”
Wing Chang’s bright fire was lighting up the trees and rocks when Helen, who had been bestowing her belongings inside the cabin, came out with something in her hands.
“What is this?” she demanded of Gard, still hovering near.
He took the big shell from her and stirred the palo verde thorns about, his mind a surge of emotions.
“What are those for?” Helen asked, again.
“Why,” he said, at last, “they’re my tally of the days I lived in the glade.”
She looked at them, in the twilight, her face touched with wonder.
“How many, many there seem to be,” she murmured.