Three months after Glendon and Jack had encountered Doctor Powell in Willcox, Katherine was sitting on the porch of her home reading to Donnie. The noise of crunching wheels sounded far down the cañon long before a vehicle came into sight between the dense mesquite brush.
It was Doctor Powell who had returned from a trip to Willcox. Katherine watched her husband receive his mail, but she was not aware that the eyes of the two men met with unconcealed antagonism, and the conversation was as curt as possible.
No whisper of the affair in Willcox had reached the ears of Glendon's wife. She had no knowledge that her husband had borrowed money to send to the Judge without a word of thanks to his unknown benefactor. The money had been forwarded to Powell by the Judge. The other fine was sent the Judge by Three-fingered Jack, accompanied by a badly scrawled note of thanks addressed to the Justice of Peace and asking that the man who had paid the fine be told that it was appreciated, and that if he ever needed any help to call on Three-fingered Jack.
Aware of Glendon's dislike, Powell's visits to the Circle Cross had ceased some time previous to the Willcox trouble, but Katherine ascribed the doctor's aloofness to his knowledge of her husband's habits. Though she missed the infrequent visits, she did not resent it. She knew that the two men had nothing in common to make them congenial.
The doctor, seeing Katherine and Donnie on the porch, hesitated as he was about to drive away. He glanced at them, and with a touch of his hat in greeting, stepped into the buggy and went on his way. The happy light faded from Donnie's eyes, but without a word he slipped down again beside his mother, his arm about Tatters' neck.
Glendon came slowly to the porch with the canvas mail-pouch on his arm. He threw off his broad-brimmed Stetson, unbuckled his spurs and sat down to read his letters without vouchsafing a word to his wife.
"Is there nothing for me?" she asked finally, hesitating to take the sack from his lap and sort its contents.
"Only papers and some of your fool magazines," he snapped. "Seems to me you are old enough to get over reading sentimental trash."
Unmindful of his words she reached for the books he tossed angrily toward her. Books were the only antidote for the mental atrophy she dreaded. Rising, she picked them up, but paused as Glendon glanced impatiently from a letter in his hands.
"Wait, can't you? Or is the 'continued in our next' too important?" he demanded.