“Is that all they’re giving her?”
“That’s dad’s idea of punishment––he’s put most of us on bread and water one time or another. But mother has ideas of her own what a kid ought to have to eat.”
Mary smiled over the recollection, and Mackenzie joined her. Joan would not grow thin with that mother on the job.
They talked over the prospects ahead of Joan and himself in the most comfortable way, leaving nothing unsaid that hope could devise or courage suggest. A long time Mackenzie remained with his little sister, who would have been dear to him for her own sweet sake if she had not been dearer because of her blood-tie to Joan. When he was leaving, he said:
“If anybody gets curious about my coming over to see you, Mary, you might let them think I’m making love to you. It would help both of us.”
Mary turned her eyes without moving her head, looking at him across her nose in the arch way she had, and smiled with a deep knowingness.
“Not so bad!” said she.
They let it go at that, understanding each other very well indeed.
Mackenzie returned to Dad’s camp thinking that the way to becoming a flockmaster was a checkered one, and filled with more adventures, harsh and gentle, than he ever had believed belonged to his apportionment in life. But he could not blame Tim Sullivan for placing Reid above him in rating on account of the encounters they had shared, or for bending down a bit in his manner, or taking him for a soft one who could be led into long labors on the promise of an uncertain reward.