“Some one is coming!”
During the silence she had again been thinking of Rex Randerson, and seeing the figure on the trail she had leaped to the conclusion that it was he. Her face had flushed. Masten noticed it, for he looked narrowly at her and, though he said nothing, there was that in his eyes which told he had divined what was in her mind.
It was not Randerson, however, but Vickers, who was coming. They all recognized him when he came closer, and they watched him with that peculiar concertedness which seizes upon an expectant company, until he dismounted at the corral gates and came toward them.
Plainly there was something on Vickers’ mind, for he smiled mechanically as he stepped upon the porch and looked at them.
“Well, I’m back,” he said. He looked at Ruth. “There’s somethin’ I’d like to say to you. It’s business. If you’d rather hear it private—”
“I think there is nothing—” she began.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve got to leave here.”
Ruth’s face grew long. Uncle Jepson gagged on a mouthful of smoke. Aunt Martha ceased knitting. Masten alone seemed unmoved, but an elated gleam was in his eyes.
“Isn’t that a rather sudden decision, Mr. Vickers?” questioned Ruth after a silence.
“Well, mebbe it is, to you,” said Vickers, with some embarrassment. “But the fact is, I’ve been thinkin’ of goin’ for a long time—about a year to be exact. I was goin’ before your uncle died, but I kept holdin’ on because he wanted me to. You see, ma’am, I’ve got a mother back East. She’s been poorly for quite a while now, an’ has been wantin’ me to come. I’ve been puttin’ it off, but it’s got to the point where it can’t be put off any longer. I got a letter from her doctor the other day, an’ he says that she can’t last a heap longer. So—I’m goin’.”