"They won't even let you have peace?" he asked deliberately to urge her in further revelation.
"Folks that have things don't want other folks to have 'em. In this country when poor folks try to get ahead all they get is trouble."
"Is that always so?"
She shrugged and said, "It's always been so with us. Big cattle outfits have drove us out time after time. They're always sayin' Alf steals; they're always makin' us trouble. I hate 'em!
"I could get along all right. I can fight but Alf can't. He's had so much bad luck that it's took th' heart out of him.... If it wasn't for me he couldn't get along at all. He's discouraged."
"You must think a lot of your father."
She shook her head as if to infer that measuring such devotion was an impossibility.
"Think a lot of him? God, yes! He's all I got. He's all I ever had. He's the only one that hasn't chased me out ... or chased after me. We've been on the move ever since I can recollect, stayin' a few months or a year or two, then hittin' the trail again. Move, move, move! Always chased out by big outfits, always made fun of, an' he's been good to me through it all. I'd crawl through fire for Alf."
"A devotion like that is a very fine and noble thing."
"Is it? It comes sort of natural to me. I never thought about it,"—with a weary sigh.