Pen held out her hand and the two women looked at each other in the quick appraising way of women. Mrs. Ames was perhaps fifty years old. She was small and thin and brown, with thin gray hair under her dusty hat and a thin throat showing under her linen duster. Her face was heavily lined. Her eyes were wonderful; a clear blue with the far-seeing gaze of eyes that have looked long on the endless distances of the desert. Yet, perhaps, the look was not due altogether to the desert, for young as she was, Pen's eyes had the same expression.
"I am glad to know you," said Penelope.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Ames, bashfully.
Oscar Ames shook hands heartily. He was a big man of fifty, with hair and skin one shade of ruddy tan.
"Glad to meet you, ma'am. Say, Iron Skull, how'd you come to let the water beat you to it? This adds another big cost to us farmers' bill."
Williams grunted. "Wish you folk had been up on the Makon. That's where we had real floods. Ames, we are doing our limit. Ain't you old enough yet to know that a lift under the arm carries a fellow twice as far as a kick in the pants? Here's the Boss now. Light on him! Poor old scout!"
Jim was on horseback. He rode slowly up and dismounted. "How are you, Ames? And Mrs. Ames? Have you met Mrs. Saradokis? Ames, before you begin to chant my funeral march let me ask you if you don't want to sell that south forty you say I'm not irrigating right. Mr. Saradokis represents some Eastern interests. Perhaps you'd like to meet him."
Oscar grinned a little sheepishly. "Business before pleasure! I'll go right up to see him now."
"Then you must come up with me," said Penelope to Mrs. Ames, and the two women followed after Jim and Oscar.
The climb was short but stiff. Pen had not yet become accustomed to the five thousand feet of elevation at which the officers' camp was set, so she had no breath for conversation until they reached the tent house. Sara lay in his invalid chair before the open door, maps, tobacco and magazines scattered over the swing table that covered his lap. Pen, as if to ward off any rudeness, began to explain as she mounted the steps: