It would have been a venture, too, he admitted. For contact with the world of men must prove a woman, even as the hardships of the range must prove a man. Perhaps the unlimited variety displayed before her eyes would have made Joan dissatisfied with her plain choice.
At that moment it came to him that perhaps Joan was to be tested and proved here, even as he was being tested in Tim Sullivan’s balance for his fitness to become 164 a master over sheep. Here were two fair samples of men out of the world’s assorted stock––himself and Reid. One of them, deliberate, calm, assured of his way, but with little in his hand; the other a grig that could reel and spin in the night-lights, and flutter to a merry tune.
With Mackenzie the rewards of life would come to her slowly, but with a sweet savor of full understanding and appreciation as they were won. Many of them most desired might never be attained; many more might be touched and withdrawn in the mockery that fate practices so heartlessly upon men. Reid could convey her at once over the rough summits which men and women wear their hearts threadbare to attain. With Reid the journey would begin where, with the best hoping, it must in his own company almost end.
“It was unlucky for Earl that he killed Matt Hall,” said Joan, taking up another thread of thought in her discursive, unfixed humor of that day.
“It’s unfortunate for any man to have to kill another, I guess. But it has to be done sometimes.”
“Matt deserved it, all right––he ought have been killed for his mean face long ago––but it’s turned Earl’s head, haven’t you noticed? He thinks he’s got one foot on each side of this range, herdin’ everybody between his legs.”
“He’ll get over it in a little while.”
“He’s not got brains enough to hold him down when the high winds begin to blow. If he’s a fair sample of what they’ve got in Omaha, I’ll cross it off my map when I begin to travel.”
“Dad says he’s got the lonesomeness.”