“Has Mrs. Chadron been overfeeding you while I was gone? Did she give you chili?”
“She offered me chili, in five different dishes, which I, remembering the injunction, regretfully put aside.”
“Well, they’re coming with the ambulance, I rode on ahead, and you’ll soon be beyond the peril of chili.” She smiled as she looked up into his face, and the smile broadened into an outright laugh when she saw the little flitting cloud of vexation there.
“I could well enough ride,” said he.
“The doctor says you could not.”
“I’m as fit for the saddle this minute as I ever was in my life,” he declared.
She made no reply to that in words. But there was tender pity in her caressing eyes as they measured the weakness of his thin arms, wasted down to tendon and bone now, it seemed. He would ride to the post, she knew very well, if permitted, and come through it without a murmur. But the risk would be foolish, no matter what his pride must suffer by going in a wagon.
“Have you heard the news from Meander?” she inquired.
“No, news comes slowly to Alamito Ranch, and will come slower now that Banjo is gone, Mrs. Chadron says. What’s been happening at Meander?”