When she called, he sprang upright with an oath. He had faced her so suddenly that it sounded as though he had sworn, not in surprise, but at her.
“You startled me,” he murmured. His eyes glanced suspiciously from her to the saddle. “These stirrup-straps—they're too short,” he announced. “Pete or somebody's been using my saddle.”
“I came to bring you this 'first-aid' bandage for your hand,” said his daughter.
Cahill gave a shrug of impatience.
“My hand's all right,” he said; “you go to bed. I've got to begin taking account of stock.”
“To-night?”
“There's no time by day. Go to bed.”
For nearly an hour Miss Cahill lay awake listening to her father moving about in the shop below. Never before had he spoken roughly to her, and she, knowing how much the thought that he had done so would distress him, was herself distressed.
In his lonely vigil on the veranda, Ranson looked from the post down the hill to where the light still shone from Mary Cahill's window. He wondered if she had heard the news, and if it were any thought of him that kept sleep from her.
“You ass! you idiot!” he muttered. “You've worried and troubled her. She believes one of her precious army is a thief and a murderer.” He cursed himself picturesquely, but the thought that she might possibly be concerned on his account, did not, he found, distress him as greatly as it should. On the contrary, as he watched the light his heart glowed warmly. And long after the light went out he still looked toward the home of the post-trader, his brain filled with thoughts of his return to his former life outside the army, the old life to which he vowed he would not return alone.