I must have looked sympathetic, for she presently broke out:
“I don’t feel, Leslie, as if I was an unreasonable or exacting kind of woman, in general, but Jake talked last night as if he thought I was. You see, I had set my heart on going to town when it came time for you girls to prove up. I’d thought of lots of little things that I was going to mention to the Land Agent, to influence him in your favor, and I guess there aren’t many folks that know better than I do how you’ve tried and tried to fill all the requirements. But Jake—”
She paused, her mouth, with its gentle-looking curves, closing as if she would say no more. But her grievance was too fresh and too bitter to admit of her keeping silence. In answer to my respectful inquiry as to why she didn’t go, she burst out impatiently:
“Jake wouldn’t let me. Said if I did I’d be interfering with what was none of my business—as if I ever interfered with any one else’s business—and, besides, he said it wasn’t convenient to take me. He went on horseback himself.”
“Oh, he’s gone, then?”
“Gracious, yes! Gone! He’s been in town nearly all night. He was out somewhere last evening, looking up cattle, he said, and he didn’t get in till almost nine o’clock; then he ate supper and started right off. I thought it was a rather dark time to be starting for town, but he said the moon would be rising before he got out on to the plains, and he didn’t care for the dark.”
“Why was he so anxious to get to town early this morning?” I asked, with what I inwardly felt to be almost insolent persistency. Mr. Horton’s good wife suspected nothing, however.
“Why, I suppose, to help you folks, if help was needed,” she replied, readily. “I’ve felt awfully cut up, Leslie, about the way our cattle destroyed your crops. It just went to my heart to think that it was our cattle that did it”—and the tears in her honest blue eyes attested the sincerity of her words—“I’ve talked to Jake a good deal about it. He hasn’t said straight out that he’d pay damages, but I’ve been thinking maybe he intended to do it in his own way, and his way was to get to town and help you all he could with the Land Agent. As he’s been known to the claim so long, his word ought to have weight. Don’t you think so?”
“I am afraid—I mean yes, certainly,” I stammered. It was not re-assuring to think of the weight that his word might have.
“When do you look for Mr. Horton to return?” I asked, rising from my chair as I spoke.