She laughed surrenderingly, and came and sat down upon the porch near him, and tapped a slipper toe nervously upon the soft, green sod.
“Time! Yes—” She threw back her head and smiled at him brightly—and appealingly, it seemed to Kent. “You remember what you told me once—about sheep-herders and such going crazy out here? The such is sometimes ready to agree with you.” She turned her head with a quick impatience. “Such is learning to ride a horse,” she informed him airily. “Such does it on the sly—and she fell off once and skinned her elbow, and she—well, Such hasn't any sidesaddle—but she's learning, 'by granny!'”
Kent laughed unsteadily, and looked sidelong at her with eyes alight. She matched the glance for just about one second, and turned her eyes away with a certain consciousness that gave Kent a savage delight. Of a truth, she was different! She was human, she was intolerably alluring. She was not the prim, perfectly well-bred young woman he had met at the train. Lonesome Land was doing its work. She was beginning to think as an individual—as a woman; not merely as a member of conventional society.
“Such is beginning to be the proper stuff—'by granny,” he told her softly.
He was afraid his tone had offended her. She rose, and her color flared and faded. She leaned slightly against the post beside her, and, with a hand thrown up and half shielding her face, she stared out across the coulee to the hill beyond.
“Did you—I feel like a fool for talking like this, but one sometimes clutches at the least glimmer of sympathy and—and understanding, and speaks what should be kept bottled up inside, I suppose. But I've been bottled up for so long—” She struck her free hand suddenly against her lips, as if she would apply physical force to keep them from losing all self-control. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “Did you ever get to the point, Mr. Cowboy, where you—you dug right down to the bottom of things, and found that you must do something or go mad—and there wasn't a thing you could do? Did you ever?” She did not turn toward him, but kept her eyes to the hills. When he did not answer, however, she swung her head slowly and looked down at him, where he sat almost at her feet.
Kent was leaning forward, studying the gashes he had cut in the sod with his spurs. His brows were knitted close.
“I kinda think I'm getting there pretty fast,” he owned gravely when he felt her gaze upon him. “Why?”
“Oh—because you can understand how one must speak sometimes. Ever since I came, you have been—I don't know—different. At first I didn't like you at all; but I could see you were different. Since then—well, you have now and then said something that made me see one could speak to you, and you would understand. So I—” She broke off suddenly and laughed an apology. “Am I boring you dreadfully? One grows so self-centered living alone. If you aren't interested—”
“I am.” Kent was obliged to clear his throat to get those two words out. “Go on. Say all you want to say.”