The next morning, when he arrived rather early, he learned from Mary Hope that her father had died just before daylight, and that Hugh had not come back, and the doctor wanted to be taken to Jumpoff, and she could not leave her mother there alone, and a coffin must be ordered, and she did not know what to do. She was past tears, it seemed to Lance. She was white and worn and worried, and 254 there was something in her eyes that made them too tragic to look at. He stood just outside the kitchen door and talked with her in a low voice so that Mother Douglas, weeping audibly in the kitchen, need not know he was there.
“The doctor can ride that livery horse in,” he said soothingly. “And I’ll wire to Lava for anything that you want, and notify any friends you would like to have come and see you through this.” He was very careful not to accent the word friends, but Mary Hope gave him a quick, pathetic glance when he said it.
“You’ve been kind––I––I can’t say just what I would like to say––but you’ve been kinder than some friends would be.”
She left the doorstep and walked with him to the stable, Lance leading his horse and slowing his pace to match her weary steps. “It––seems unreal, like something I’m dreaming. And––and I hope you won’t pay any attention to what father––said. He was out of his mind, and while he had the belief, he––”
“I’d rather not talk about that,” Lance interrupted quietly. “Your father believed that we’re all of us thieves, that we stole his stock. Perhaps you believe it––I don’t know. We’ve a hard name, got when the country was hard and it took hard men to survive. I don’t think the Lorrigans, when you come right down to it, were any worse than their neighbors. They’re no worse now. 255 They got the name of being worse, just because they were––well, stronger; harder to bully, harder to defeat. The Lorrigans could hold their own and then some. They’re still holding their own. There never was a Lorrigan ever yet backed down from anything, so I’m not going to back down from the name the Rim has given us. I’m glad I’m a Lorrigan. But I’m not glad to have you hate me for it.”
They were at the stable door, which Mary Hope pulled open. The hired horse stood in the second stall. Lance dropped the reins of his own horse, turned to Mary Hope and laid his hands on her shoulders, looking down enigmatically into her upturned, troubled face.
“Girl, don’t let us worry you at all. You’ve got trouble enough, and I’m going to do all I can to help you through it. I’ll send out friends; and then the Lorrigans won’t bother you. We won’t come to the funeral, because your father wouldn’t like to see us around, and your mother wouldn’t like to see us around, and you––”
“Oh, don’t!” Mary Hope drooped her face until her forehead rested on Lance’s arm.
Lance quivered a little. “Girl––girl, what is it about you that drives a man mad with tenderness for you, sometimes?” He slipped his free arm around her shoulders, pressed her close. “Oh, girl––girl! Don’t hate Lance––just because he’s a Lorrigan. Be fairer than that.” He 256 bent his head to kiss her, drew himself suddenly straight, his brows frowning.
“There––run back and ask your mother what all she would like to have done for her in town, and tell the doctor that I’ll have the horse ready for him in about two minutes. And be game––just go on being game. Your friends will be here just as soon as I can get them here.” He turned into the stable and began saddling the horse.