The next day the colonel and Mrs. Rogers departed for home.
“Now bring your mother over soon,” urged Mrs. Rogers, as they prepared to drive away. “Don't wait for Margaret to finish her visit in Cheyenne.” Reddy blushed guiltily. This was exactly what he intended doing. “But just come whenever you can.”
The colonel added his voice to hers as they drove off, then he lapsed into silence at her side, and the silence endured for many miles. He was thinking of the conversation of the day before, and he was still groping vaguely among memories of the past. At last he turned to his wife, and began telling her of the trip across the plains, with the Landrays and his father. It was a confused narrative, for there seemed to be mingled with it incidents that belonged to another journey that had been made under different circumstances.
“Do you know, I'd like mightily to write to Mrs. Landray,” he said at last.
“Well, why don't you, colonel?”
“Well, maybe I will when Margaret gets back.”
It was dusk when they reached home, and as they drove up to the ranch house door, two men came out, hearing the sound of wheels, and to one of these the colonel surrendered his team. The other, a weazened swarthy man, touched him on the arm as he was about to enter the house.
“What is it?” he asked, turning back.
“Tom Raymond's here.”
The colonel groaned aloud. The speaker grinned. He was the ranch foreman, he had been with the colonel many years and he knew almost as much of Roger's affairs as Rogers did himself. He understood the nature of Raymond's hold on the colonel, and he regarded it as a conspicuous weakness on the part of an otherwise sane and rational man.