“He ought to be ready to stop chasing girls after this,” she declared.
“He won’t if he can walk; his kind never does quit.”
“Then his kind ought to be locked up somewhere like mad dogs. In a ’sylum, maybe.”
“I guess you’re right on that, Mary. They’re dangerous.”
“Funny we didn’t know he’d been up there, going past 188 our house. He must have been there first before taking Janet.”
“Sneaked up in the night, probably. He’d have to have grub and so on if he expected to stay even a day or two. Crooks always look after their bellies, be sure.”
“I reckon Janet Hosmer will like Mr. Weir a whole lot now, don’t you?”
“She ought to, if she doesn’t.”
A long silence followed while Mary apparently pursued the line of thought opened up by this speculation.
“If she has the good sense I think she has,” the rancher stated at length, for his mind at least had been following out the subject, “she’ll not only like him a whole lot, but she’ll lead him to the altar and put her brand on him.”