It was night and late, but as Bender rode by the forks where Hines's private road joined on to the Lone Tree trail, a new moon gave sufficient light for him to see a whitish object lying in the grass. He judged it a grain-sack till a convulsion shook it and a sob rose to his ears.
"Good land, girl!" he ejaculated, when, a moment later, Jenny's pale face turned up to his, "what are you doing here?"
"He's turned me out."
"Who?"
"Jed." The absence of the parental title spoke volumes—of love killed by slow starvation, cold sternness, of youth enslaved to authority without mitigation of fatherly tenderness.
Without understanding, Bender felt. "What for?" he demanded.
Crowding against his stirrup, she remained silent, and the touch of her body against his leg, the mute appeal of the contact, sent a flame of righteous passion through Bender's big body. Indecision had never been among his faults. Stooping, he raised her to the saddle before him, and as she settled in against his broad breast a wave of tenderness flowed after the flame.
"No, no!" she begged, when he turned in on Jed's trail. "I won't go back!" And he felt her violently trembling as he soothed and coaxed. She tried to slip from his arms as they approached the cabin, and her terror filled him with such anger that his kick almost stove in the door.
"It's me!" he roared, answering Hines's challenge. "Bender! I came on your gal lying out on the prairies. Open an' take her in!"
In response the window raised an inch; the moonlight glinted on a rifle-barrel. "Kick the door ag'in!" Jed's voice snarled, "an' I'll bore you. Git! the pair of ye!"