"I want you to let me—tell Tiny!" Jack Swift said hoarsely, as Herbert stared. Jack's was a look of pure appeal.
"You?"
"Yes——You understand?"
"That's all right! I thought I couldn't have been mistaken," said Herbert, still looking him in the eyes. "By ghost, Jack, you're a sportsman!"
He held out his hand, and Swift gripped it. In another minute they were a quarter of a mile apart; but it was Swift who was riding on to the whim, very slowly now, and with his eyes on the black timbers rising clear of the sand against the sky. He could never look at them without hearing words and tones that it was still bitter to remember; and now he was going—to break bad news to Tiny? That was his undertaking.
He found the whim driver with her book in the shadow of the tank.
"Good-afternoon," Christina said very civilly, though her eyebrows had arched at the sight of him. "Have you come to see whether the troughs are full, or am I wanted at the homestead?"
"Neither," said Swift, smiling; "only the mail is in, and there are letters from England."
"How good of you!" exclaimed the girl, holding out her hand.
Swift was embarrassed.