“You ain’t half-bad at the chuck-wagon, Miss Messiter,” he told her.
She stopped, the sandwich part way to her mouth. “I don’t remember your face. I’ve met so many people since I came to the Lazy D. Still, I think I should remember you.”
He immediately relieved of duty her quasi apology. “You haven’t seen my face before,” he laughed, and, though she puzzled over the double meaning that seemed to lurk behind his words and amuse him, she could not find the key to it.
It was too dark to make out his features at all clearly, but she was sure she had seen him before or somebody that looked very much like him.
“Life on the range ain’t just what y’u can call exciting,” he continued, “and when a young lady fresh from back East drops among us while sixguns are popping, breaks up a likely feud and mends right neatly all the ventilated feudists it’s a corollary to her fun that’s she is going to become famous.”
What he said was true enough. The unsolicited notoriety her exploit had brought upon her had been its chief penalty. Garbled versions of it had appeared with fake pictures in New York and Chicago Sunday supplements, and all Cattleland had heard and discussed it. No matter into what unfrequented cañon she rode, some silent cowpuncher would look at her as they met with admiring eyes behind which she read a knowledge of the story. It was a lonely desolate country, full of the wide deep silences of utter emptiness, yet there could be no footfall but the whisper of it was bruited on the wings of the wind.
“Do you know where the Lazy D ranch is from here?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Can you take me home?”
“I surely can. But not to-night. You’re more tired than y’u know. We’ll camp here, and in the mo’ning we’ll hit the trail bright and early.”