"Well, I saw some one. He went up into the brush. I thought it was you." Lorraine turned in the doorway and stood looking at him perplexedly. "We shouldn't be talking about it, dad—the doctor said we mustn't. But are you sure it wasn't you? Because I certainly saw a man crawl out from under the wagon and start up the hill. Then the horses acted up, and I couldn't see him after Yellowjacket jumped off the road."
Brit lay staring up at the ceiling, apparently unheeding her explanation. Lorraine watched him for a minute and returned to the kitchen door, peering out and listening for Frank to come from Echo with supplies and the mail and, more important just now, fresh fruit for her father.
"I think he's coming, dad," she called in to her father. "I just heard something down by the gate."
She could save a few minutes, she thought, by running down to the corral where Frank would probably stop and unload the few sacks of grain he was bringing, before he drove up to the house. Frank was very methodical in a fussy, purposeless way, she had observed. Twice he had driven to Echo since her father had been hurt, and each time he had stopped at the corral on his way to the house. So she closed the screen door behind her, careful that it should not slam, and ran down the path in the heavy dusk wherein crickets were rasping a strident chorus.
"Oh! It's you, is it, Lone?" she exclaimed, when she neared the vague figure of a man unsaddling a horse. "You didn't see Frank coming anywhere, did you? Dad won't have his supper until Frank comes with the things I sent for. He's late."
Lone was lifting the saddle off the back of John Doe, which he had bought from the Sawtooth because he was fond of the horse. He hesitated and replaced the saddle, pulling the blanket straight under it.
"I saw him coming an hour ago," he said. "I was back up on the ridge, and I saw a team turn into the Quirt trail from the ford. It couldn't be anybody but Frank. I'll ride out and meet him."
He was mounted and gone before she realised that he was ready. She heard the sharp staccato of John Doe's hoofbeats and wondered why Lone had not waited for another word from her. It was as if she had told him that Frank was in some terrible danger,—yet she had merely complained that he was late. The bunk-house door opened, and Sorry came out on the doorstep, stood there a minute and came slowly to meet her as she retraced her steps to the house.
"Where'd Lone go so sudden?" he asked, when she came close to him in the dusk. "That was him, wasn't it?"
Lorraine stopped and stood looking at him without speaking. A vague terror had seized her. She wanted to scream, and yet she could think of nothing to scream over. It was Lone's haste, she told herself impatiently. Her nerves were ragged from nursing her dad and from worrying over things she must not talk about,—that forbidden subject which never left her mind for long.