“Yes, I know,” said Jimmy softly, and wondered if his mother guessed what it really was that he hungered for and could not talk about even to her.
Mrs. Burton was turning back into the house when they heard some one coming up the trail from the cañon. A moment later the Pardners appeared. Saint Jimmy and his mother knew at once that the old prospectors had come on business of greater moment than to make a mere neighborly call.
When they had exchanged the customary greetings and Marta’s fathers had assured their friends that the girl was well, Thad and Bob sat looking at each other in troubled silence.
“Wal,” said Bob, at last, “why don’t you go ahead? She’s your gal this week. Bein’ her daddy makes it your play, don’t it?”
Thad, rubbing his bald head desperately, made several ineffectual attempts to speak. At last, with a recklessness born of this inner struggle, he addressed Mrs. Burton:
“‘You see, ma’am, me an’ my pardner here has been takin’ notice lately how my gal Marta is due, first thing we know, to be a growed-up woman.”
“She is, indeed!” replied Jimmy’s mother with an encouraging smile.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s what me an’ Bob here took notice. An’ we’ve been figgerin’ up that mebby it was time she knowed what we know about her. You an’ your son knows the same as everybody does, I reckon, that we ain’t Marta’s real honest-to-God daddies.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “but we have never, in any way, mentioned the matter to Marta.”
“No, ma’am,” said Thad, “an’ we ain’t neither.”