“Come inside, won't you?” she invited at last, coming back to everyday matters. “Of course you're hungry—or you ought to be. You daren't run away from my cooking this time, Mr. Cowboy. Manley will be back soon, I think. I must get some lunch ready.”
Kent replied that he would stay outside and smoke, so she left him with a fleeting smile, infinitely friendly and confiding and glad. He turned and looked after her soberly, gave a great sigh, and reached mechanically for his tobacco and papers; thoughtfully rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and held the match until it burned quite down to his thumb and fingers. “Pals!” he said just under his breath, for the mere sound of the word. “All right—pals it is, then.”
He smoked slowly, listening to her moving about in the house. Her steps came nearer. He turned to look.
“What was it you wanted to see Manley about?” she asked him from the doorway. “I just happened to wonder what it could be.”
“Well, the Wishbone needs men, and sent me over to tell him he can go to work. The wagons are going to start to-morrow. He'll want to gather his cattle up, and of course we know about how he's fixed—for saddle horses and the like. He can work for the outfit and draw wages, and get his cattle thrown back on this range and his calves branded besides. Get paid for doing what he'll have to do anyhow, you see.”
“I see.” Val pushed back the rebellious lock of hair. “Of course you suggested the idea to the Wishbone. You're always doing something—”
“The outfit is short-handed,” he reiterated. “They need him. They ain't straining a point to do Man a favor—don't you ever think it! Well—he's coming,” he broke off, and started to the gate.
Manley clattered up, vociferously glad to greet him. Kent, at his urgent invitation, led his horse to the stable and turned him into the corral, unsaddled and unbridled him so that he could eat. Also, he told his errand. Manley interrupted the conversation to produce a bottle of whisky from a cunningly concealed hole in the depleted haystack, and insisted that Kent should take a drink. Kent waved it off, and Manley drew the cork and held the bottle to his own lips.
As he stood there, with his face uplifted while the yellow liquor gurgled down his throat, Kent watched him with a curiously detached interest. So that's how Manley had kept his vow! he was thinking, with an impersonal contempt. Four good swallows—Kent counted them.
“You're hitting it pretty strong, Man, for a fellow that swore off last fall,” he commented aloud.