"It takes a quick man to be a daddy stockman, don't it?"
"It does."
"Then I reckon all your quickness has gone into cattle," she answered, and broke into another peal of laughter, and flicked the old horse awake, and so passed on down the road.
Power drew his reins together and finished the journey up the hill. You look upon a very fair prospect from the summit of Dingo Gap; long lines of hills lifting broad bosoms to the sky; far behind on the plain the broad belt of the river; ahead the broken pathway dipping downward to Surprise. Power was short-sighted that evening, and waiting up there to breathe his horse he fell into a brown study, and looked from a pinnacle of his soul down a valley long as the roadway of Dingo Gap. Mayhap he called himself turncoat, wearer of any man's livery, weathercock to flap wings to every wind; sufficient it is, he left his thoughts presently, for the day grew old, and by sunset he had ridden into the beginnings of Surprise. With a nod here, a good day there, he passed to the stable and spent the last minutes of daylight serving his horse. That matter to his mind, he turned steps towards the house.
Maud Neville sat before the house alone. At his coming, she jumped up in great good spirits. He guessed she had counted on the meeting, for she wore a dress he had noticed once. Yet he must remark the wear and tear of summer on her face, and fall out of humour at his own keenness of sight. He did his best to meet her mood. "Back once again," he called out.
"You owe us two days," she answered. And next she cried: "Jim, Jim, I'm so glad." She left the kisses she had waiting for him till later on, as Messrs Boulder and Niven took the evening against the store across the way, pipe at mouth, the tail of an eye cocked for whatever might go forward.
Standing there at the doorstep of the house Power became suddenly aware that he had to his credit a long day's ride, and that he was tired. The cries of the crickets and other evening insects entered his consciousness, and with surprise he remarked the afterglow of the sunset, and realised night would fall in a few minutes. This slight fatigue affected him suddenly and strangely. He saw with new vision the pure soul of the woman who waited now ready to receive him. Always she met him with open hands, whether he came in good humour or in bad. She bore the tiring summer days without repining, and, more than that, from the daily course of affairs extracted a philosophy of life. He was tired after the day's ride, and here she stood desiring only to banish his fatigue by her ministrations. She had had her own day's work, but that was unremembered. She had learned that giving was more profitable than taking. He saw how often he hunted the shadow and missed the substance.
The cries of the insects began again while the afterglow faded in the sky. The promise he had made an hour since came to mind. He bent his brows at thought of it. Well, it was given now. It must be kept. Maud was leading the way into the house, and he was following her mechanically. In the dining-room a table was laid for one person. The cloth was clean; all was ready to hand. She had done this on the chance of his coming to-night. This joy of service was love. And he too claimed to love. Yet he had put himself out little enough when all was said and done—came much when he wanted, went much when he wished. What a good woman she was, yet he always had to be telling himself this. He was one of those heavy-eyed dullards who would not believe in the butterfly because the chrysalis was a poor thing.
What was happening this evening that he was for ever dreaming? He had often enough been a bit tired; but it had not caused melancholy. Why shirk the point? The child on the road had moved him beyond all experience. She had put a torch to his thoughts. She had seemed an echo of all lovers who had tripped down the corridors of time.
"Wake up, Jim! You are tired, poor boy."