"No, she ees not dead. She 'live yet. I can not tell you how I know. I not know how myself, me. But I know. Somew'ere she wait teel I come. Un I weel come. I weel come. Den, w'en hees hair ees on my bridle, I weel be complete satisfy, un I weel work on de ranch steady. I not care w'at happen den."
Laguerre fell silent. His reminiscent mood passed on to his comrade. Since leaving the Bend the days had been so crowded that Loudon had had no time to think of anything save the work in hand. But now the tension had slackened, the old days came back to Loudon, and he thought of the girl he had once loved.
He saw her as he used to see her on their rides together along the Lazy River; he saw her swinging in the hammock on the porch of the Bar S ranch house; he saw her smiling at him from the doorway of the room in the Burr house; and he saw her dark eyes with the hurt look in them, her shaking shoulders when she turned sidewise in the chair and wept, her blindly swaying figure when she stumbled from the room. All these things he saw on the screen of his mind.
Apparently she loved him. But was the semblance the reality? It was all very well for Mrs. Burr to talk about coquettes. Kate Saltoun had played with him, had led him on to propose, and then at the end had with contumely and scorn refused him. His sense of injury had so developed that his brain had come to dwell more on the contumely and the scorn than it did on the refusal. Mankind is apt to lose sight of the main issue and to magnify minor events till at last the latter completely overshadow the former.
"It ain't possible," reasoned Loudon, "to care for a girl that called yuh a ignorant puncher. Some day she might get mad an' call yuh that again, an' then where'd yuh be? Wouldn't yuh look nice with a wife that knowed she was better'n you an' told yuh so whenever she felt like it?"
"Well, ain't she better'n you?" queried the honest voice of Inner Consciousness.
"She's lots better," admitted Innate Stubbornness. "But she wants to keep still about it."
"An' she's shore a razzle-dazzler in looks, ain't she?" persisted Inner Consciousness. "An' her ways have changed a lot. An' she acts like she likes yuh. Lately yuh been kind o' missin' her some yoreself, ain't yuh? Ain't yuh, huh? Be kind o' nice to have her round right along, wouldn't it? Shore it would. Which bein' so, don't yuh guess Mis' Burr knows what she's talkin' about? Why can't yuh have sense an' take the lady's advice?"
"I won't be drove," insisted Innate Stubbornness. "I won't be drove, an' that's whatever."
Inner Consciousness immediately curled up and went to sleep. It had recognized the futility of arguing with Innate Stubbornness. Loudon wondered why he could no longer think connectedly. He gave up trying.