She assented.
"One word will tell you what it means, Dallas. It's Indians!"
She showed no sign of disquiet. Presently, when she had thought over the announcement, she turned round to him, frankly meeting his gaze for the first time. "That's funny," she said. "Why, last year, all the way up from Texas, there wasn't an Indian bothered us!"
"Last summer, before you came, the soldiers at Brannon did not dare go more than a mile outside the lines to hunt. It will be the same this summer. There is that stockade full of prisoners, and four of them are condemned to be hanged. Before long the Indians will be circling the post."
She looked away at the ox-team. They were being taken from the plow and put to a wagon.
Then, again, she turned squarely. "What about Shanty Town?" she said with meaning.
He understood. "Shanty Town goes when the troops go. But"—hesitatingly—"Matthews does not. He will stay at Brannon to act as interpreter."
"He will!" she said, and coloured.
He coloured, too, feeling himself reproved. But from under the wide, battered felt that had supplanted the nubia, his eyes shone with no resentment, only fatherly tenderness.
"You wonder why I do not remain," he began, "so that Matthews could be sent away. I shall tell you."