"Dallas!" he cried. It was not a greeting, but a plea.
The moment was one long dreamed of, yearned for. A woman less genuine might have met it without a show of feeling. She—outspoken and simple—could not. Her eyes swam. Dropping the gun, she clasped his hand greedily.
"I knew you'd get back quick as you could," she said, choking.
For a long moment they stood thus, hand-in-hand, looking at each other. She saw that he was changed. The glint of merriment was gone from his eyes. His forehead bore new lines. His mouth had lost its boyishness. With her, the past four weeks had also left their mark. The old look of high purpose was on her face. But she was older and graver, and wore the new expression that Oliver had seen.
She spoke first. "Your mother?" she faltered inquiringly, and withdrew a step.
"My mother—is gone," he said slowly. Then, after a pause, "I came right after that; didn't stop to settle things. I can go back to the States later. But if I'd been here sooner—it mightn't 'a' happened——"
She checked him gently. "Now, you got enough to worry you without us. We wouldn't go to the Fort or Bismarck. And that was the whole trouble." To excuse her father, and to take the blame herself, she told him of the refusal of David Bond's money, and of Mrs. Cummings' slight.
"You see," she explained earnestly, by way of putting the best possible colour to the latter episode, "you see, they think over there that we're trash. So they're bound to let us alone. It ain't that they haven't good manners——"
It was Lounsbury's turn to interrupt. He was tramping about. "Manners!" he said violently; "manners! what's manners to do with it? There's a lot that's good manners—and cursed bad heart!"
She took up the scythe, brought a whetstone from the depths of a pocket and ran it down the blade thoughtfully.