"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a sudden blaze of scorn.
"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you—leaving you for a man!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand to his neck.
"You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she. She wouldn't have you——"
"Ah—she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why—she's—" He broke off, glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her——"
A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the room.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE TURNING OF COONEY
WHEN she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle Cooney. The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had come before the thing was done.
She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a night's ride at Cooney's best trail pace, and in a region rough and untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed her from a few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket, admiring its denseness, not notable in any way, but casual, improbable to the searching eye.
"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such, done with all fighting. It was good to anticipate the thing, the restfulness of extinction—or not, as that might be. That was no matter. She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that in a moment she would feel as little as Randall Teevan—or as much. She unconsciously drew herself up at the thought of facing that withered fop.