Taylor had actually been a martyr on a small scale in confining himself to the bunkhouse, when he could have enjoyed the comforts and spaciousness of the ranchhouse if it had not been for her own presence.
“Is—is his ankle badly sprained?” she hesitatingly asked the now sober-faced puncher.
“Kind of bad, ma’am; he ain’t been able to do no walkin’ on it. Been hobblin’ an’ swearin’, mostly, ma’am. It’s sure a trial to be near him.”
“And it is warm here; it must be terribly hot in that little place!”
She was at the edge of the porch now, her face radiating sympathy.
“I am not surprised that he should swear!” she told the puncher, who grinned and muttered:
“He’s sure first class at it, ma’am.”
“Why,” she said, paying no attention to the puncher’s compliment of his employer, “he is hurt, and I have been depriving him of his house. You tell him to come right out of that stuffy place! Help him to come here!”
And without waiting to watch the puncher depart, she darted into the house, pulled a big rocker out on the porch, got a pillow and arranged it so that it would form a resting-place for the injured man’s head—providing he decided to occupy the chair, which she doubted—and then stood on the edge of the porch, awaiting his appearance.
Inside the bunkhouse the puncher was grinning at Taylor, who, with his right foot swathed in bandages, was sitting on a bench, anxiously awaiting the delivery of the puncher’s message.