"So that is what was doing when I went to the Senator's office this afternoon to plead with him that things could not go on in the old plundering way. That is what his man's visit meant here the other day to express sympathy with you for the loss of the sheep? Now I understand what the loafers at the station meant, and the driver's unfriendliness, and those unclean women; and to think they framed it all out of that innocent coat. You know, father, Mr. Wayland had carried Fordie down from the Rim Rocks. We carried the body in together."
"Where is Wayland?" asked MacDonald; and she poured out the full story of all that had happened. I hope, gentle reader, you will please to observe that if the father had viewed the facts of that recital through the same tainted mind as Mr. Bat Brydges, a breach would have occurred that neither time nor regret could have bridged. I confess when I see breaches occur that wrench lives and break hearts through love harboring suspicion, I don't think the love is very much worth the name. You can't both have your plant grow, and keep tearing up the roots to see if they are growing. You can't both throw mud in a spring and drink out of a well of love undefiled. If love grows by what it feeds on, so does suspicion. He did not once look up questioningly to her eyes. Instead, he reached up and took hold of her hand. For the first time in their lives, father and daughter came together.
"But there is one thing you are mistaken about, father. They did not hit me, to hurt you. They hit me, to stop Dick Wayland."
"Why, what difference can you make to Wayland?"
She hid her face on his shoulder.
"I love him," she said.
When the German cook came in with the washed dishes, father and daughter still sat in the big arm chair; and you may depend on it, that flunky carried out to the ranch hands, guzzling over the evening paper in the bunk house, a proper report of a heart broken father and a repentant daughter; for when we look out on the world, do we see the world at all; or do we see the shadows of our own inner souls cast out on the passing things of life?
CHAPTER XX
A FAITH WORKABLE FOR MEN ON THE JOB
"The point is," said Wayland, "though, we have driven out this nest of beauties, we have no guarantee another nest won't take their place; and so we're not much farther ahead than before, with the chances I'll be called down for exceeding my duties."