“Enough to scare her. The ranch’s as good as gone already. What good’s the land if we can’t get water up to it?”
“I know,” murmured Innes.
“I’m not blaming any one, Miss Hardin. Unless it’s myself. I ought never to have brought her here. Not until the river’s settled. The wind’s the worst to her; she’s that scared of the wind.”
“I’ll go and bring her home with me. You’ll feel better to have her near town,” she suggested.
“That’s first-class.” His relief was pathetic. His dull fidelity, his love for that nervous wreck of a woman, rose that instant to the dignity of a romance. She thought of the purple flannel waist, the untidy home, the smell of burning rice, of scorched codfish, the loving struggle of the woman who dared life in the desert beside her mate, lacking the strength to make it tolerable to either.
“I’ll bring her home with me,” she repeated.
She did not wait for his gratitude. Her horse was turned back to town. She saw Wooster coming toward her. His snapping black eyes shot out sparks of anger.
“He won’t let me go.”
“Who won’t let you?” But she knew.
“Casey. Says he’ll send some one else. I said as nobody else’d make Hardin stop. He said as that was up to Hardin.”