"And then?"
"Ah'll see thet—thet Oliver knows o' this, thet he keeps a' eye on thet dog-goned——"
"But it'll be easier just to go straight to the Captain; not I, but you——"
"Yes, do pa," urged Marylyn. "Oh, Dallas, what's happened?"
The elder girl told of the pole and the bootmarks, treating them lightly. Then she came back to her father. To find that her argument of a moment before, for all its short-cut logic, had set him utterly against the plan he had himself proposed. And now he was for no man's help, but for a vengeance wreaked with his own gun. Hurling a final defy toward Shanty Town, he disappeared behind the partition.
No breakfast was eaten that morning. The section-boss was too angry to taste of food, Marylyn was too frightened, and Dallas had no time. For she was busy with the mules, currying them and putting them before the wagon. "Can't help what you think about it this time," she said when her father asked her where she was going; "I've made up my mind that if you won't say the Fort, why then I'll have to drive to Clark's for Mr. Lounsbury. We don't know for sure what that pole meant. We must ask."
"Aw, you ain't got a smitch o' pride," he taunted jealously. "Goin' t' Lounsbury. Wal! Wal! You think a heap o' him, don' y'? More 'n you do o' you' father! Thet sticks out like a sore finger."
"No," she answered simply. "I'm putting my pride in my pocket, dad. I'm going to Mr. Lounsbury because I care so much for you, and for Marylyn. And I want to say something—I hate to say it—you've almost discouraged me about Brannon lately. We came here to raise stuff to sell over there. But I can't see how we can sell over there if we won't even speak to a soul. It looks as if we're going to give all that up—as if a lot of my work is for nothing."
It was a new thought for the section-boss. And while Dallas disappeared behind Betty, he pondered it with hanging head. She came around soon to hitch Ben's tugs, when her father looked up shamefacedly. "Ah'll tell y', Dallas," he said, by way of compromise, "ef Lounsbury don't come back with y'——"
"He will," assured Dallas, stoutly.