Lancaster did not answer, but scolded feebly, as if worn with his long trip. "W'y d' y' fret a man 'fore he c'n git down an' into th' house?" he demanded. "Ah'm plumb fruz t' death, an' hungry."
She helped him over the wheel and through the door. Then she went back and, in feverish haste, stabled the mules. On entering the shack, now dimly lighted by a fire, she did not need to repeat her question. She read the answer in her father's face.
"No use," Lancaster told her, raising wet, tired eyes to hers. "Th' claim was gone 'fore ever we got here—filed on las' July." He lay down, muttering in a delirium of grief and physical weariness.
The fire, made only of dry grass, began to die, the room to darken. Dallas' face shadowed with it. She was thinking of the level quarter that was to have blossomed under her eager hands; that was to have brought comfort to Marylyn and her crippled father. And now the land was gone from them, had never been theirs—they were only squatters.
Any hour, a nameless man—perhaps he who had gone by that day—might descend upon them and——
The bail of a bubbling pot slipped down the bar that held it, and the vessel clattered upon the hearth. She started as if a gun had exploded at her elbow.