Weary waited what seemed to him a reasonable time, but her lashes drooped lower, if anything. Then he made one of the quick, unlooked-for moves which made him a master of horses. Before she quite knew what was occurring, the schoolma'am was upon her feet and snuggled close in Weary's eager arms. More, he had a hand under her chin, her face was tilted back and he was smiling down into her wide, startled eyes.
"I didn't burn a streak a thousand miles long in the atmosphere, getting back here, to be scared out now by a little woman like you," he remarked, and tucked a stray, brown lock solicitously behind her ear. Then he bent and kissed her deliberately upon the mouth.
"Now, say you're my little schoolma'am. Quick, before I do it again." He threatened with his lips, and he looked as if he were quite anxious to carry out his threat.
"I'm your—" the schoolma'am hid her face from him. "Oh, Will! Whatever made you go off like that, and I—I nearly died wanting to see you—"
Weary laid his cheek very tenderly against hers, and held her close. No words came to either, just then.
"What if I'd kept on being a fool—and hadn't come back at all, Girlie?" he asked softly, after a while.
The schoolma'am shuddered eloquently in his arms.
"It was sure lonesome—it was hell out there alone," he observed, reminiscently.
"It was sure—h-hell back here alone, too," murmured a smothered voice which did not sound much like the clear, self-assertive tones of Miss Satterly.
"Well, it come near serving you right," Weary told her, relishfully grinning over the word she used.