Hardy looked up quickly and caught the significance of his pose, but he did not smile. He did not even show an interest in the play.
“How do you figure that out?” he asked, indifferently.
“Oh, I know,” drawled Creede. “Got a letter from her.”
A single hawk-like glance was the only answer to this sally.
“She says: ‘Why the hell don’t you write!’” volunteered the cowboy.
“’S that so!” commented Hardy, and then he went on with his cooking.
For a minute Creede stood watching him, his eyes keen to detect the slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten him; he moved 135 about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning nothing, yet far away, as in a dream.
“Huh!” exclaimed Creede, disgusted with his own make-believe, “you don’t seem to care whether school keeps or not. I’ll excuse you from any further work this evenin’––here’s your mail.”
He drew a bundle of letters from behind his back and dropped it heavily upon the table, but even then Hardy did not rise.
“Guess the Old Man must’ve forwarded my mail,” he remarked, smiling at the size of the pack. “I’ve been knocking around so, I haven’t received a letter in a year. Chuck ’em on my desk, will ye?”