He clucked at the horses, and the wagon moved forward amid a stir of red dust. The woman on the front seat drew her sunbonnet over her face. The man beside her looked neither to the right nor the left, but stared out over his newly-acquired team with an impassively set visage. His long whip curled out with a hiss, the spirited animals gave a forward bound, and the wagon went clattering and jolting down the trail.
Moreau stood watching its canvas arch go swinging downward under the dark boughs of the pines and the flickering foliage of the aspens. He watched until a bend in the road hid it. Then he turned toward the cabin. Fletcher was standing behind him, surveying him with a cold and sardonic eye:
“Well, you’ve done it!”
“I guess I have.”
“What the devil are you going to do with her?”
“Don’t know.”
“And the horses gone; nothin’ but that busted cayuse left!”
They stood looking at each other, Fletcher angrily incredulous, Moreau smilingly deprecating and apologetic.
As they stood thus, neither knowing what to say, the emigrant’s wife appeared at the doorway of the cabin.
“I’ll get your supper now if it’s the right time,” she said timidly.