“If we had known you were coming, we would have been ready for you,” suggested Gerty.
Innes’ gaze had been turning outward to the lines of canvas, making a white glitter on the alkali floor of the encampment, trapezium in shape. Stark in outline, vivid in color, she saw the desert again as a savage; her terms, brutal, uncompromising. But were they taking her on her terms, these intruders? They were making her over to their wishes, as a man makes unto his liking the wife of his satisfied choice? She was following a thought born of her late visit. Strange, the zeal which would remake the sweetheart, thought peerless! Her mouth curved with ironic tenderness. Gerty’s treble notes fell around her ears. She was listening to her own musing, and watching the dripping arm of the dredge as it dug a trap for the Colorado.
The prattle grew insistent, interrogative. She had to look at shelves, at cupboards, at a clever ramada which was both pergola and porch. Returning to the outer tent, she went back to the door, her Hardin pulse leaping to the implication of that dredge-arm swinging low in the river.
“Isn’t it all cozy?” Gerty’s eyes shone on her contrivances. “It all means work. It has taken two whole months to get it to look like this. Every piece of lumber had to be coaxed for, and you’d think the carpenter was a ward boss, he’s that haughty.”
Gerty looked younger and prettier. Her flush accented her childish features which were smiling down her annoyance over this uninvited visit.
“I had the ramada put up after the shed; an afterthought. They gave me a tent for a kitchen at first—as if I could cook in a tent! We eat in the ramada. The flies ate us up, so I sent for screen wire, and had it enclosed. It isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than it was. The flies will get through that roof. It keeps one busy to remember to have fresh brush piled over it. It dries so quickly in this sun. Isn’t it hot here? Hotter than the towns ever were; don’t you think so?”
Innes said she had not been there long enough yet to tell!
“We have all the home comforts, haven’t we?” Innes’ gaze swept the disguised tent with its home-made sketches and cushions and art-nouveau lamp-shades—even the green mandarin skirt had found a place on the center-table made of rough pine. “Why shouldn’t we be comfortable when we are to be here for months? I’m going to brave it out—to the bitter end, even if I bake. It is my duty—” She would make her intention perfectly clear! “There ought to be at least one cozy place, one soft nook that suggests a woman’s presence. We have tea here in the afternoon, sometimes. Mr. Rickard drops in.” The last was a delicate stroke.
“Afternoon tea? At the Front? Is this modern warfare?” The girl draped her irony with a smile.
“Warfare? What do you mean?” Gerty turned from the new chafing-dish and percolator she had intended showing to Innes.