“Not that, Don. I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I want to go on just as I am for a while. It’s too perfect to disturb. You haven’t an idea how much I’m enjoying it, visiting round with Mrs. Downing, the Cranstons and the Lees and all the rest, exchanging recipes and listening to all the family woes and triumphs. You wouldn’t find much excitement in hearing for the fourth occasion just what a frightful time Johnny Downing had when he cut his first baby teeth; or about that historical event when Ella Cranston essayed her first barefooted venture outside and stepped on a hornet, and what a fearful expense it’s been to keep her in shoes ever since,—just refuses to go barefooted even in summers, since that day, Ella does. But I positively revel in all that. It’s been so long since I’ve had many women friends. I don’t want to lose a minute of all this.”
“I’d contract not to spoil it for you,” he offered. “You could go right on doing the same things you do now. Maybe I’d learn to tingle and thrill over Johnny’s teething myself. He set them in my thumb the last time I’m over at Downings so I take it they all come through in good shape. Couldn’t you learn to be loving me just a trifle if you’d make a real earnest effort?”
“A lot—without the least effort,” she frankly admitted. “Don’t you know, Don, that every real woman is always just on the verge of loving some tumbleweed? She doesn’t have to try loving him but to try to keep from it. That’s the difficult part.”
“Then why not take the easy trail out?” he suggested.
“All women lean toward the wild weeds—they’ve got that in them,” she said. “But the ones who listen to that call always pay in the end. Oh, I don’t mean that you’d ever do anything I’d be ashamed of,” she hastened to add. “You wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be distrust of you, but fear for you, that would be my lot if I let myself get to caring. Don’t you see? I’ve loved two tumbleweeds before now—Dad and Bart—and I don’t feel quite up to loving a third. It’s a woman’s portion to sit and wait for bad news. So let’s go on just as we are.”
Three wagons rolled up the valley and pulled into the Half Diamond H.
“There comes Thanksgiving dinner,” said Carver. “Old Nate was down with us overnight. Likely he knew that I couldn’t afford to feed the grub-liners indefinitely so he said he’d ride down to Alvin and send up a bite for the boys. It appears like he’d sent it in tons; enough to run to next August. We’ll be expecting you and Bart over for a turkey dinner to-morrow.”
X
The one business block of Wharton, a little town twenty miles north of the Cherokee-Kansas line, seemed almost deserted. Four men sat on the edge of a raised-board sidewalk midway of the block. Two others leaned against the support posts of a wooden shelter which roofed the sidewalk before a hardware store. Four horsemen clattered round the corner, their black masks furnishing a sinister contrast to the quiet village scene, and the few citizens of Wharton who chanced to be abroad witnessed the advent of the modern bandit, come to replace the road agent whose day had passed when railroad transportation superseded stage-coach travel on the overland trails.
Three of the men dropped from their saddles before the Wharton bank, two of them entering while the third stood guard before the door and the mounted man held the horses of the other three.