"Me? Homestead? Never!"
"Why not? I didn't say anything about it before, because I wanted first to see whether you liked it and whether it agreed with you. You're taking hold fine, and I believe we'd make a big thing of it together. There's a hundred and sixty on the coulee just east of the next butte. You've been over it?"
"Yes," Harry admitted. She remembered the swale, the strip of green meadow, the springs breaking from the hillside; it did not compare in value with Rob's land, but it was a good "hundred and sixty."
For a moment Harry had a vision of herself as a ranch owner: riding a cow pony, planting and selling crops, building up a herd of her own, perhaps. Then came swiftly a picture of herself standing alone in the doorway of the cabin, as she had seen the women standing in their doorways watching the train pass their lonely prairie homes. Yes, it would be that way with her, while Rob was off with Jones or some other man. She shook her head.
"I couldn't! I've no money. I can't make any out here. What should I do for clothes and things? It took all I made at home, teaching, to keep me properly dressed."
"You wouldn't need such things here; you'd be a lot better off without them, if you're going to wear yourself out getting them. In a few years you'd have a farm worth something—you and I together could do a lot. As it is, some old cow-puncher'll settle it up, or a sheepman'll grubstake a Mex to prove up on it for him, and the sheep'll eat out the whole range. It wouldn't take you long to commute, only fourteen months, and then, if you didn't like it, you could hike back East. Of course it would cost you two hundred dollars to prove up, but you could make that easily by teaching a district school."
Again Harry hesitated. She remembered suddenly the young school-teacher whom she had met on the train, and who was giving up a good salary to come out and homestead.
"If I have to spend all I'd make teaching merely to prove up, I don't see that I'd be any better off than if I went back home. If I could do something to earn money to put into the ranch it might be worth while."
"Quit throwing things out before they're half used; that would save some money, anyway."
Rob spoke brusquely. He hated to find fault with Harry, but he had wanted to speak before this about her wastefulness, and now she was giving him an excuse.