Lon scratched his head to help him think. It was sometimes a laborious process. He knew cattle and crops, but chaperoning a young woman was untried territory.
“Times has changed, Betty,” he explained. “You kinda growed up helter-skelter an’ run wild. But you’re a young lady now, an’ you can’t be too careful. You gotta think about what folks’ll say.”
“Fiddlesticks! What’ll they say? What can they say if you stay up here with me? It’ll be only a day or two till Dad gets home. It’s just that you’ve been getting notions from Justin. He’s a city man and doesn’t know our ways. But you’ve always lived here, Lon. I’m surprised at you.”
“O’ course there ain’t any real harm in yore stayin,” he conceded hesitantly. “I’ll be here to look after you an’ see Prowers don’t trouble you. An’ it won’t be long.”
“I’m staying because I really can help, Lon. Justin thinks it’s only foolishness, but you know it isn’t. In Denver, where he lives, there are plenty of trained nurses, but it’s different here. If Bridget could get in, I wouldn’t say a word about staying. But she can’t. If I went away and left this poor boy, you’d never respect me again.”
“I would, too. But there. You’re gonna stay. I see that.”
“Yes, I am.” She caught the lapels of the big foreman’s coat and coaxed him with the smile that always had proved effective with him. “And you know I’m right. Don’t you, Lon?”
“Nothin’ of the kind,” he blustered. “An’ you needn’t try to come it over me. I know you too blamed well, miss. You’re bound an’ determined to have yore own way—always were since you were a li’l’ trick knee-high to a duck. Trouble is, you’ve been spoiled.”
“Yes,” she admitted, “and you did it.”
“No such a thing. I always did tell Clint he’d find out some day what’d come of lettin’ you boss the whole works.” To save his face he finished with a peremptory order. “Don’s fixin’ up some supper. Soon as you’ve had yours, why, you’ll go right straight to bed. Doc an’ me are aimin’ to look after Hollister to-night.”