“He thinks he won’t come through it,” Mrs. Featherstone went on, after an instant. “And he wants me to come—as quick as the Limited’ll bring me, for he won’t let them operate till I get there. And he wants me to marry him again. He says if he doesn’t come through—” she choked on it—“he wants to go knowing I’m his wife; he wants me to have—what he’s got.” She gave a sudden decisive sniff and threw up her head. “And I guess it might just as well come to me as to those two sisters of his that are rolling—simply rolling—already, and always treated me like the dirt under their feet!” She came out of her personal preoccupation for a moment and considered her niece and her lover. “Well!—So you’ve made it up, have you? You’ve come to your senses?”
They told her, without resentment, that they had come to their senses.
“Well, I’m sure I’ve done what I could. I certainly haven’t left a stone unturned— Look here—” she addressed herself exclusively to the young man—“you’ll transplant her from that ranch, the very first thing you do, won’t you? You’ll take her east, won’t you? I won’t have to—”
“I’ll take her east, yes,” said Dean Wolcott. “I’ll take her east with me as soon as I’ve finished here, but I’ll bring her west again whenever she says the word.”
“Oh, Lord!” said Ginger’s Aunt Fan in exasperation. “If you’re going to be as soft as that she’d better have married ’Rome Ojeda. Well, if ever you want to see me, you can stop off in San Francisco!”
Then she grew tender and her very blue eyes looked as they did when she was thinking about food and making mental menus for herself, and she laid hold of them both with her plump, pretty hands. “My dears, I’m glad for you; I am glad. I think you’ve got something to hold to, and see that you hold on to it! Henry and I had it, once, and Jim and I thought”—her face contracted swiftly. “I must fly and pack. The doctor’s driving me in to Monterey to catch the train so I can start east in the morning. I don’t know what I’m going to do; I won’t know till I get there.” She shook her head. “The minute I get into New York I’ll have a good, straight talk with that surgeon and see if things are really as desperate— Of course, the idea of marrying Jim again never entered my head. But if I don’t, and he does die, I suppose I’ll never forgive myself. And if I do—and he doesn’t”—her eyes snapped blue fire—“I’ll never forgive him!”
Elmer Bunty, the Scout, lay in state in a vacant cabin and the Airedale charged outside the door. The very blond girl went in with an armful of wild flowers and tall ferns, and when she came out again her eyes were red-rimmed. She saw Dean and Ginger and nodded to them, smiling mistily, and when the young man was not looking she held up two fingers to Ginger’s gaze, uncrossed.
Dean Wolcott had to go back to his headquarters at Post’s; there were reports to be made, telephones to the Chief Ranger at King City, to the Scout Master in San Francisco. He would come to her again in the evening.