“You were in that hot bunkhouse all morning,” she said. “Why didn’t you send word before?”
“You were careful to tell me that you didn’t want me around when you came.”
There was a gleam of reproach in his eyes.
“But you were injured!”
“Look how things go in the world,” he invited, narrowing his eyes at her. “It’s almost enough to make a man let go all holds and just drift along. Maybe a man would be just as well off.
“Early this morning I knew I had to light out for the day, and I didn’t want to go any more than a gopher wants to go into a rattlesnake’s den. But I had to keep my word. Then Spotted Tail gets notions——”
“Spotted Tail?” she interrupted.
“My horse,” he grinned at her. “He gets notions. Maybe he wants to get away as much as I want to stay. Anyhow, he was in a hurry; and things shape up so that I’ve got to stay.
“And then, when I hang around the bunkhouse all morning, worrying because I’m afraid you’ll find out that I didn’t keep my word, and that I’m still here, you send word that you’ll not object to me coming on the porch with you. I’d call that a misjudgment all around—on my part.”
“Yes—it was that,” she told him. “You certainly are entitled to the comforts of your own house—especially when you are hurt. But are you sure you worried because you were afraid I would discover you were here?”