CHAPTER XV
ONLY ONE JACOB
Joan came riding over the next morning from Reid’s camp, not having heard of Mackenzie’s shift to oblige Dad Frazer. She was bareheaded, the sun in her warm hair, hat hanging on her saddle-horn.
“Dad might have come by and told me,” she said, flinging to the ground as lightly as a swallow. “It would have saved us half an hour.”
“We’ll have to work harder to make it up,” Mackenzie told her, thinking how much more a woman she was growing every day.
Joan was distrait again that day, her eyes fixed often in dreamy speculation as her teacher explained something that she found hard, against her wonted aptness, to understand. When the rather disjointed lesson came to an end Joan sighed, strapping her books in a way that seemed to tell that she was weary of them.
“Do you still think you’ll stick to the sheep business, John?” she asked, not lifting her eyes to his face, all out of her frank and earnest way of questioning.
“I’m only on probation, you know, Joan; something might happen between now and this time next year to change things all around. There’s a chance, anyhow, that I may not make good.”
“No, nothing will ever happen to change it,” said Joan, shaking her head sadly. “Nothing that ought to happen ever happens here. I don’t know whether I can 161 stand it to carry out my contract with dad or not. Three years between me and what I’m longing for!”