"Well, what if she is?" Lytton countered, the surprise in his face giving way to sullenness. "We've discussed me and my wife enough for one day. You're inexperienced. You don't know her kind. You don't know women, Bayard. Why, damn their dirty skins, they—"
"You drop that!" Bruce cried, rising and leaning across the table. "You keep your lying, dirty mouth shut or I'll..."
He drew his great fists upward slowly as though they lifted their limit in weight. Then suddenly went limp and smiled down at the face of the other man. He turned away slowly and Lytton drawled.
"Well, what's got into you?"
"Excuse me," said the rancher, with a short laugh. "I'm ... I'm only worked up about a woman myself," reaching out a hand for the casing of the doorway to steady himself. "I'm only wondering what th' best thing to do is.... You said yourself that ... experience was th' only way to learn...."
That afternoon Lytton slept deeply. Of this fact Bayard made sure when, from his work in the little blacksmith shop, he saw a horseman riding toward the ranch from a wash that gouged down into Manzanita Valley. When he saw the man slumbering heavily on his bed, worn from the struggle and the sleeplessness of last night, he closed the door softly and returned to resume the shoeing of the pinto horse that stood dozing in the sunlight.
"Oh, you is it, Benny Lynch?" Bayard called, as the horseman leaned low to open the gate and rode in.
"Right again, Bruce. How's things?"
"Fine, Benny. Ain't saw you in a long time. Get down. Feed your horse?"