“Goin' up to Bakersfield?”
Again Donna nodded.
“Well, if you ain't got anything on, what's the matter with some lunch and an automobile ride afterward, sister? What're you goin' to do in Bakersfield?”
“I am going to meet a young man at the station” replied Donna sweetly. “A tall young man with a forty-four-inch chest and a pair of hands that will look as big as picnic hams to you when I tell him that you've been impertinent to me.”
The face of the impertinent one crimsoned with embarrassment. He mumbled something about not meaning any offense, fussed with his watch-charm for a minute, coughed and finally fled to the day-coach.
Donna smiled after his retreating figure. How good it was, after three years of subjection to the vulgar advances of just such fellows as he, to reflect that at last she was to have a protector! An almost unholy desire possessed her to see Bob climb aboard at the next station, twine his lean hands around that drummer's trachea and shake some manhood into him. This thought suggested reflections upon the present state of Bob's health, so she took his last letter from her hand-bag and read it for the forty-second time. But it was unsatisfactory—it dealt entirely with Donna and his experiences with applicants for lieu land, so she abstracted, one by one, every letter she had ever received from him and read them all. So absorbed was she in their perusal that the other side of the range, which had always been such a matter of primary importance, was now relegated to oblivion.
The brakeman came through the car shouting: “Bakersfield! The next station is Bakersfield!” but Donna did not hear him. She was dreaming of Bob McGraw.
The train came to a stop. Donna dreamed on—and presently a familiar voice spoke at her side.
“Well—sweetheart! The train pulls out again in two minutes and I've been looking for you in every car—”
“Bob!”