Then she saw, slowly emerging from the shadows of the meadow below, a darker shadow—mysterious, formless—that seemed, as it approached, to shape itself out of the very darkness through which it came, until, still dim and indistinct, a horseman was opening the meadow gate. Before the cowboy answered Jimmy's boyish "Hello!" Kitty knew that it was Phil.
The young woman's first impulse was to retreat to the safe seclusion of her own room. But, even as she arose to her feet, she knew how that would hurt the man who had always been so good to her; and so she went generously down the walk to meet him where he would dismount and leave his horse.
"Did you see father?" she asked, thinking as she spoke how little there was for them to talk about.
"Why, no. What's the matter?" he returned quickly, pausing as if ready to ride again at her word.
She laughed a little at his manner. "There is nothing the matter. He just went over to see the Dean, that's all."
"I must have missed him crossing the meadow," returned Phil. "He always goes around by the road."
Then, when he stood beside her, he added gently, "But there is something the matter, Kitty. What is it? Lonesome for the bright lights?"
That was always Phil's way, she thought. He seemed always to know instinctively her every mood and wish.
"Perhaps I was a little lonely," she admitted. "I am glad that you came."
Then they were at the porch, and her ambitious brothers were telling Phil in detail their all-absorbing designs against the peace of the coyote tribe, and asking his advice. Mrs. Reid came to sit with them a-while, and again the talk followed around the narrow circle of their lives, until Kitty felt that she could bear no more. Then Mrs. Reid, more merciful than she knew, sent the boys to bed and retired to her own room.