And as he prepared to take his departure for his bunk-house, his hand rested encouragingly upon the girl’s soft shoulder.
When Molly entered the living-room at sun-up the next morning, and found Lightning completing his task at her stove, she was without her customary greeting for him. Lightning glanced up from his labours and discovered the anxious searching of her gaze. He smiled. It was a curious, twinkling smile that never got beyond his eyes. But those it lit in a fashion that must ordinarily have seemed impossible.
“Say, Molly, gal,” he observed, with a studied contortion of his features intended to express physical pain. “Guess the rheumatiz’s got my left hinge some. I’d take it kindly fer you to dump the ash bucket for me.”
He finished up with another fierce contortion as he rose from his knees before the stove. And, in a moment, Molly was all sympathetic concern.
“Why, I’m sorry, Lightning,” she cried. “I’ll fix the hoss oils right away. You haven’t had a touch of that a whole winter. It surely is the ploughing. The flat’s damp with the spring freshet. I’ll fix a good bottle before I eat.”
She seized the bucket of ashes standing ready as the crackling of the wood in the stove developed into a roar of flame up the iron stove pipe.
She moved towards the door, and Lightning’s voice followed her.
“Them iles is mighty good dope, but I don’t guess them’s my need. It’s the saddle. It’s the saddle I was raised to. And I bin weeks on my feet. The saddle’ll fix it better’n hoss dope.”
The girl had flung open the door to pass out, but she stood stock still where she was, the heavy bucket firmly grasped in one hand. The old man watched her, and his eyes had strangely softened. He beheld a flush of excitement break out upon her soft cheeks, and then—and then the bucket fell to the ground and overturned its whole contents upon the immaculate floor.
“Lightning! You knew!”