“Fine. Take Little Nuisance along,” Reed said, and poked a forefinger into Ruth’s softly padded body. “I’ve got to go to town, anyhow, an’ won’t be back till late.”
It was nearly two weeks since Betty had shaken hands with Justin Merrick and closed in good-will a chapter of her history. She had not seen Tug Hollister since then, but word had reached her that he had gone back to work in the hills. Merrick’s men were on the Flat Tops running the lines where the ditches were to go.
She was waiting for Tug to come to her. Surely he did not intend to let things end between them as they were. He would ride up some day and tell her that he had been a stiff-necked idiot who had at last seen the light. Every day she had looked for him, and her eyes had moved up the road in vain.
In the pleasant sunshine Ruth prattled cheerfully of puppies, dolls, gingerbread, Sunday school, her new pink dress, and warts. Betty came out of a brown reverie at the name of Hollister.
“I fink he might come an’ see us. I’m jes’ as mad at him,” the child announced. “’N’ I’m gonna tell him so, too, when he comes.”
“If he comes,” Betty found herself saying with a little sigh.
She knew that if he did not make the first move she would take the initiative herself. A little point of pride was not going to stand in the way of her happiness. But she believed he ought to come to her. It was a man’s place to meet a girl more than halfway.
It was, of course, some fantastic sense of duty that was holding him back. She had not very much patience with it. Why was he not generous enough to give her a chance to be generous about this fault he magnified so greatly? He did not seem to appreciate her point of view at all.
On Betty’s desk at the Quarter Circle D E an unopened letter lay awaiting her. She had never seen Hollister’s writing, but at the first glance after she picked up the envelope her heart began to hammer. She knew who the message was from. The postmark was Wild Horse. Evidently the mailman had delivered it an hour or two earlier.
She tore the flap and read: