His face brightened approvingly; "I like that! It is 'God's country,' surely, even though abandoned for a space by its brightest angel. Come back to us soon!"
"That was very sweet of you, and I am going to take it at full face value," she said, steadily. "That is the first compliment you have ever paid me and I am commensurably proud. But do you know"—her lips were very close to his ear—"it seems funny somehow! I had rather—oh, dear! I really can't help it!—but couldn't you manage to swear at me a little, Ken!" Her face was a vivid scarlet and she laughed a little hysterically. Before he had recovered from his astonishment she was in the arms of Abbie, who, attended by Red, had just driven up in the buckboard with the luggage.
She persistently avoided his eyes as she shook hands with Red. "Mr. McVey," she said, laughingly, "we have so over-burdened Mr. Douglass with responsibility for innumerable things that he won't have time to take care of himself; will you kindly look after him for us?"
Red's jaws closed spasmodically at the appeal underlying her forced levity; his grasp tightened ever so little but of other sign he was guiltless. Then he turned and looked at Douglass with preternatural gravity:
"I'm shore honahed, Miss Grace, with yuah commission! Yuh leave it to me! I'll see he gits he's milk regulah an' goes to hes leetle baid at seven every night. On yuah return I'll hand him oveh to you all wropped up in cotton bats, tied with pink ribbon like thet about yuah naick, thet is, purvidin' I kin rustle thu ribbon."
His meaning was unmistakable, and though blushing at his audacity, Grace took up the gage. Deliberately unclasping the tiny golden heart, which held the narrow band in place, she made a dainty little roll of the silk, fastened the end with the jewel and laid it in Red's bronze paw. Douglass, watching the little by-play with a curious interest, wondered at the quiver in that iron fist which could hold the weight of a heavy Colt's .45 with never a tremor.
Among the mail handed him later by old Hank was an official-looking document dated Denver. It was from the office of the State Registrar of brands and was almost laconic in its brevity:
"The brand O-O (left side); earmarks, square crop right, underbit left; is registered in the name of Bartholomew Coogan. He claims residence at Gunnison, and range in Gunnison County from Texas Creek to Quartz Creek. Date of record May 1st, 1898."
He reread the letter three times with exceeding care, his eyes narrowing to mere slits, then thrust it into an inner pocket. He was very thoughtful on the homeward ride, his preoccupied air at the supper table emboldening Punk to irreverent levity:
"These yeah partin's are shore deespiritin' things!" he observed, lugubriously, to nobody in particular. "I don't wonder none thet gloom has settled in one great gob oveh thu achin' souls of this yeah outfit. Why, I'm so sad, mahself, thet I kin hawdly eat pie!" Nevertheless he cast avaricious glances at Douglass's portion of that comestible and later took advantage of his abstraction to filch the savory morsel.