RESPONSIBILITY SITS HEAVILY ON LAFE
"It's a wonder," said Johnson to his wife one day, "it's a wonder we ain't never heard anything from Steve Moffatt."
She looked up from her sewing in curiosity. "Surely you don't want to hear from him, do you? I declare, one would think, to hear you talk, that you were sorry."
Lafe did not dispute this, but got down on his knees that his son might mount and ride him. Lafe, Jr., was pleased to consider his father a bucking bronco on these occasions and used to dig his heels gleefully into his ribs. Time—two months after Mordecai Bass and the half-breed shook dice against death, and they hanged Baptismo to a stout tree.
The boss of the Anvil freed himself from his rider by pitching him over his shoulder, and rose and dusted his knees.
"Well, anyhow," he said, "you remember what he done wrote to me when me and you were married. He said 'adios,' you mind. And he told me he wouldn't bother me until after the honeymoon."
"I remember well enough. What of it?"
"It's a mighty long time since the honeymoon," said her husband, shaking his head dubiously.
Hetty laughed, but the look she turned on Lafe was not wholly devoid of anxiety. For this was but one of a series of incidents. His behavior and recent trend of thought worried her. Since Jerry's tragic death, he seemed another individual. Lafe had grown subject to fits of depression and frequently gave utterance to the gloomiest forebodings. What had he on his mind? Nothing—not a thing in the world. Yet he continued to hint darkly that it would be just their luck if he fell ill, or were killed, leaving Hetty and the boy alone to starve.
"Nonsense!" cried Hetty, after she had listened patiently to several repetitions of this obsession. "We're doing fine. You've got this place and six hundred dollars saved. And Mr. Horne pays you a hundred and twenty-five a month, and Bob owes you three hundred—"