"Souls?" Her father snapped the breech closed. "A soul's like a good sailin' ship. If she's driving on a lee shore it's through bad seamanship and the winds of heaven, and you can't save it anyway. If she ain't driving on a lee shore—well, I don't guess she needs saving."
"It's a great big scallywag," came through the open doorway after them, as they departed. The tenderness and affection in the manner of the girl's parting words made Gordon feel that his great host had some compensation for the absence of that mother who had blessed him with such a pledge of their love.
The two men were returning with their bag. It was not extensive, but it was select. A small blacktail was lying across Mallinsbee's broad shoulders. Gordon was carrying a large jack-rabbit, and several brace of prairie chicken. The younger man was enthusiastic over their sport.
"Talk to me of a city! Why, I could do this twice a day and every day, till I was blind and silly, and deaf and dumb. I sort of feel life don't begin to tell you things till you get out in the open, at the right end of a gun. Makes you feel sorry for the fellows chasing dollars in a city."
They were approaching the limits of a woodland bluff, from the edge of which the ranch would be in view.
"Guess that's how I've always felt—till little Hazel got without a mother," replied Mallinsbee. "After that—well, I just guess I needed other things to fill up spare thoughts."
Gordon's enthusiasm promptly lessened out of sympathy. Something of the loneliness of the ranch life—when one of the partners was taken—now occurred to him.
"Yes," he said earnestly, "the right woman's just the whole of a man's world. I guess there are circumstances when—this sun don't shine so bright. When a man feels something of the vastness and solitude of these hills, when their mystery sort of gets hold of him. I can get that—sure."
"Yep. It's just about then when a bit of coal makes all the difference," Mallinsbee smiled. "I wouldn't just call coal the gayest thing in life. But it's got its uses. When the summer's past, why, I guess the stoves of winter need banking."
Gordon nodded his understanding.