"Oh, whenever you get th' chanst. Soon as you kin. You got Pickles for an excuse, ain't you?"
At this point the solicitous caretaker outside risked a look through the window. His glance travelled over the shoulder of Dave, sitting with his back to the window, and rested on the face of Rose. Wrhat he saw there was a revelation: scorn, contempt, loathing, the expression any good woman might bear toward a man with a mind considerably lower than the nobler beasts; it lasted but a moment; placidity swept over the regular features as she replied. "Mais oui," she admitted, "Fritz is excuse."
"Well, you won't need any excuse if you play th' game right. You 'll be excuse enough, yourself."
Enthralled by the contradiction between the expression and speech of Rose, the watcher prolonged his stare beyond safety. Rose's level gaze lifted from the unnoting eyes of Dave and rested full on the face in the window. The watcher changed instantly to the listener with one hand on his gun, but not so quickly that he failed to see the brilliant smile that flashed across the face of Rose. The alert tenseness of his attitude relaxed as he realized the significance of that smile and his shoulders heaved in strangling a laugh at the way Dave was being fooled.
Dave's moodiness persisted. He sat glowering at the point of his boot, switching it venomously with his quirt, a thing he had not carried since his experience with the Cyclone cattle at the Hog Back. It reminded him of his proven lack of ability as a driver of cows; but it was "out of this nettle, Chagrin, that he plucked the flower, Complacence"; a cynical laugh announced recovery from the black mood. "Well, there 's some as help me better 'n you do," he declared. "If I can't get Peters here, I give him somethin' that 'll keep him busy at home."
"Bien, but how?" Rose's interest had just the proper amount of congratulatory warmth and a faint wheeze escaped the listener outside as he choked back a laugh of admiration.
"I give him the itch," replied Dave, with dramatic brevity.
"Itch?" repeated Rose, in perplexity.
"Yes—itch, mange, scab! His d—n cows 'll be scratchin' their hides off afore he knows it. Th' Cyclone had it an' I got One-Eye Harris to save me out some. Mangiest lot o' cows ever I saw. We put 'em across th' Jill, up by th' Rocking Horse, a while back."
"But the range—is it not bad?" asked Rose, wonderingly.