"We're on the trail," Bill repeated mechanically. "It may be a damn long one, but it's got to end."
"It has," said Tommy, bouncing a rock off Wise One's rump. "Ivery trail has got an ind to it, Bill—it has, that."
Bill walked several paces. "I wonder," he said then.
"Did yuh leave a fire, Bill, in the stove?" Tommy broke a moody silence. "She's smokin' yit."
"It's Don," Bill said indifferently. "I wish they'd quit worrying over me. Hell, you'd think I never spent months in the desert before! I hate to be treated like a sick kid," he added querulously.
"Wit' a fire starrted a'ready, supper'll be quicker got," Tommy observed plaintively, and made for the camp. "I'll warrm up the beans an' bile the coffee in the time it takes t' tell it," he said.
Bill went on with his steel and dumped it beside the blacksmith shop. The heads of two horses showed over the front gate,—Don's horses. Bill felt a contraction of the throat. He wished they would leave him alone; their unspoken loyalty hurt; their sympathy made him writhe. And then, Don might bring letters. Bill felt as if he could not bear to see another letter.
So he walked into the camp—from which Tommy had fled—and confronted Doris. Bill pushed the door shut behind him and leaned against it, not knowing that he did so. He did not speak.
Doris, in khaki riding skirt and flannel shirt, her hair braided down her back, was standing by the table, on which were three plates, three cups. She was holding a can of tomatoes in one hand, and with the other she was trying to open the can with a dull can-opener.
"Did the man ever live," she asked, "that kept a decently sharp knife or anything on the place?"