“Now look here, John”––Sullivan spoke with a certain 248 sharpness, a certain hardness of dictation in his tone, “you’d just as well stand out of it and let Earl have her.”
Mackenzie’s heart swung so high it seemed to brush the early stars. It was certain now that Joan had not gone home without a fight, and that she had not remained there throughout his recovery from his wounds without telling protest. More confidently than before he repeated:
“She isn’t his yet!”
“She’ll never get a sheep from me if she marries any other man––not one lone ewe!”
“How much do you value her in sheep?” Mackenzie inquired.
“She’ll get half a million dollars or more with Earl. It would take a lot of sheep to amount to half a million, John.”
“Yes,” said Mackenzie, with the indifference of a man who did not have any further interest in the case, seeing himself outbid. “That’s higher than I’ll ever be able to go. All right; let him have her.” But beneath his breath he added the condition: “If he can get her.”
“That’s the spirit I like to see a man show!” Tim commended. “I don’t blame a man for marryin’ into a sheep ranch if he can––I call him smart––and I’d just as soon you as any man’d marry one of my girls, as I said, John. But you know, lad, a man can’t have them that’s sealed, as the Mormons say.”
“You’re right,” Mackenzie agreed, and the more heartily because it was sincere. If he grinned a little to himself, Tim did not note it in the dusk.