Penny could think of nothing more incongruous than poor, mouselike, negative Rebecca breaking bounds, especially with so many small hands on her apron strings. Equally incongruous was the idea of Mort's being unable to handle Becky. Becky was a living example of a woman who had failed miserably to live up to the heroic name given her by romantic parents.
Yet, Vince had made flat statements, and there was Mort agreeing with them. "I'll see that she don't pull no more stunts like that last," he promised. "I was pretty sore about that, an' I let her know it. I reckon after what I said an' done she'll think a good many times before she tries tuh interfere with my affairs again."
"And mine!" snarled Vince. "If it was only yore affairs I wouldn't give a damn, but when she starts mixin' intuh my affairs I won't stand fer it."
"She won't no more. She's had a lesson she won't fergit."
Penny couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought of the punishment probably inflicted upon Mort's wife. A bully who dared not defy another man, Mort was almost sadistic in the way he treated Rebecca.
"Now that that's settled," said Mort, "how soon is Rangoon due here?"
"Any time now," Vince replied.
Rangoon was one of several cowhands who had come to the Basin during Penny's absence to replace the men she had known. All the newcomers seemed to have a common surliness of manner, an unwholesome look about them, a furtiveness that Penny didn't like. She could think of no reason why her cousins should be out in the rain before daybreak to meet one of the hired hands.
She drew a chair to the window and sat down to eavesdrop without the slightest feeling of compunction. She rested her arms on the windowsill and her head on her forearms. Her stockinged feet were boyishly wide apart.
Mort and Vince grumbled in low tones about the weather while they waited for Rangoon. Presently the dark-faced cowhand appeared in the gathering dawn.