"Want me to go along with you?" Lite asked, and reached for his saddle and blanket.
"No, I want you to go to bed." Jean's tone was softer than it had been for that whole day. "You've had all the riding you need. I've been shut up with Aunt Ella and her favorite form of torture."
"Got your gun?" Lite gave the latigo a final pull which made Pard grunt.
"Of course. Why?"
"Nothing,—only it's a good night for coyotes, and you might get a shot at one. Another thing, a gun's no good on earth when you haven't got it with you."
"Yes, and you've told me so about once a week ever since I was big enough to pull a trigger," Jean retorted, with something approaching her natural tone. "Maybe I won't come back, Lite. Maybe I'll camp over home till morning."
Lite did not say anything in reply to that. He leaned his long person against a corral post and watched her out of sight on the trail up the hill. Then he caught his own horse, saddled it leisurely, and rode away.
Jean rode slowly, leaving the trail and striking out across the open country straight for the Lazy A. She had no direct purpose in riding this way; she had not intended to ride to the Lazy A until she named the place to Lite as her destination, but since she had told him so, she knew that was where she was going. The picture-people would not be there at night, and she felt the need of coming as close as possible to her father; at the Lazy A, where his thoughts would cling, she felt near to him,—much nearer than when she was at the Bar Nothing. And that the gruesome memory of what had happened there did not make the place seem utterly horrible merely proves how unshakable was her faith in him.
A coyote trotted up out of a hollow facing her, stiffened with astonishment, dropped nose and tail, and slid away in the shadow of the hill. A couple of minutes later Jean saw him sitting alert upon his haunches on a moon-bathed slope, watching to see what she would do. She did nothing; and the coyote pointed his nose to the moon, yap-yap-yapped a quavering defiance, and slunk out of sight over the hill crest.
Her mind now was more at ease than it had been since the day of horror when she had first stared black tragedy in the face. She was passing through that phase of calm elation which follows close upon the heels of a great resolve. She had not yet come to the actual surmounting of the obstacles that would squeeze hope from the heart of her; she had not yet looked upon the possibility of absolute failure.