She didn’t come into view till after five o’clock. When she reached the edge of the ravine an’ started down, she paused an’ looked off into the valley with her face in plain view. Horace looked at it through his glasses, gave a start, and then handed the glasses to The. “Have you ever seen any one who looked like her?” sez he.
The looked and broke out into a regular expression. “That’s the original of the photograph I had,” sez he.
“That’s the Friar’s girl, sure as the sky’s above us,” sez Horace.
I grabbed the glass and took a look. She did look like the picture, but older and more careworn. Some way I had allus thought o’ the Friar’s girl as bein’ young and full of high spirits, with her head thrown back an’ her eyes dancin’; but just as I looked through the glasses, she pressed her hands to her head, and her face was wrinkled with pain. She was better lookin’ than common, but most unhappy.
“That devil, Ty Jones, is mean to her!” I growled between my teeth.
“Dogs or no dogs, I’m goin’ down to have a talk with her,” sez Horace.
He started to get up, but I pulled him back to the ground. I had kept my eyes on her, and had seen the two dogs turn their heads down the ravine, and her own head turn with a jerk, as though some one had called to her. Horace looked through the glasses again, and said he could see her lips move as though talkin’ to some one, and then she went down into the ravine. We couldn’t see the bottom of the ravine from where we were, nor we couldn’t see the ranch buildin’s; so we hustled back through some washes to our look-out, and reached it just as she and Ty came out at the bottom.
They were walkin’ side by side, but Horace, who was lookin’ through the glasses, said they seemed to be quarrelin’. “It’s moonlight to-night,” sez Horace, “and I’m goin’ to sneak down and try to see her.”
We argued again’ it all we could, but he stood firm; so all we could do was to sit there and wait for the lights to go out in the bunk-house. As she was a reader, we figured ’at she’d be the last one to turn in; normal habits an’ appetites not havin’ much effect on book-readers.