"Why do you never come into the water? Don't you like to stand in it?" she asked of George.
"Come and sit beside me here, and I will tell you!"
She nestled down beside him, and he called to Bose, who laid his head on his master's knee and looked knowingly from one to the other.
"About three years ago, before I had built this house of mine, I lived in a little shanty, about a mile from the river—just back here. The summer was very hot. I had suffered much from the sun and the want of water in crossing the country, and after the man who came out here with me had gone on to Fort Yuma, I was left entirely alone. When I see you over your ankles in the water now, I am often tempted to call you back, only I know that you are young and strong, and I remember but too well what pleasure there is in it. Besides, you do not remain in it as I did, for long weary hours every day, standing in the shade of a willow catching fish for my dinner. There was little else here to eat then, and I never left off fishing till I was taken with rheumatism, from which I had suffered years before. I was all alone and could not move, and had nearly perished for want of water, because I could not walk down to the river to get it. Nor could I cook anything, because beans require a great deal of water, and I would have died alone in my shanty, if it had not been for this dog." (Bose wagged his tail to indicate that he understood what was being said.) "A dozen times a day Bose would trot down to the river, dip up a small tin pailful of water, and bring it to me where I stood or lay. Otherwise the faithful old fellow never left my side, day or night, and though he would, no doubt, nurse me through another spell of rheumatism, it would be dreadful to be sick and alone here after you and your people have left me."
Dora was stroking the dog's rough coat. "It would be dreadful," she repeated, absently, a tear rolling from her lashes to her cheek. Her words and the look in her eyes thrilled the man to his inmost soul.
"Dora," he said, and arrested the hand travelling over Bose's head; "Dora, I am old enough to be your father—"
"Yes," she replied, looking up artlessly—but there was something in his face that made her eyes drop and the warm blood flush her cheeks.
When he spoke again it was of something quite different, and after awhile the conversation turned to her family. Her stepfather did not always treat her well; he had struck her cruelly once, and her mother dared not interfere, she knowing his temper but too well. George could hardly keep from putting his arms about her to shield her from the man's rough ways, and in his heart he vowed that it should be different if Dora did but will it so. The stepfather and aunt had spoken of pulling up stakes soon, but what wonder that Dora was averse to going?
In the evening George W. proposed to the stepfather that he remain at the station and "farm it" near the river, while the mother kept house for them all and served meals to the travelling public of Arizona. From sheer perverseness the stepfather refused, saying that he wanted to go on to California, and George W. determined to hasten matters in another direction. He hovered as much as possible about Dora, who, since the day by the riverside, had taken Bose into her confidence and affection. Wherever she went the dog went, too, and his master augured well for himself from this, though Dora was shy and more distant than when she first came to Gila Bend.