Half a mile she galloped,and met Lite coming home.She glanced over her shoulder before she pulled Pard down to a walk,and Lite's greeting,as he turned and rode alongside her,was a question.He wanted to know what was the matter with her.He listened with his old manner of repression while she told him,and he made no comment whatever until she had finished.
"You must have made him pretty sore,"he said dispassionately."I don't think myself that you ought to stay over to the ranch alone.Why don't you do as he says?""And go back to the Bar Nothing?"Jean shivered a little."Nothing could make me go back there!
Lite,you don't understand.He acted like a crazy man;and I hadn't said anything to stir him up like that.
He was--Lite,he scared me!I couldn't stay on the ranch with him.I couldn't be in the same room with him.""You can't go on staying at the Lazy A,"Lite told her flatly.
"There's no other place where I'd stay."
"You could,"Lite pointed out,"stay in town and go back and forth with the rest of the bunch.It would be a lot better,any way you look at it.""It would be a lot worse.There's my book;I wouldn't have any chance to write on that.And there's the expense.I'm saving every nickel I possibly can,Lite,and you know what for.And there's the bunch--I see enough of them during working hours.
I'd go crazy if I had to live with them.Lite,they've put me in playing leads!I'm to get a hundred dollars a week!Just think of that!And Burns says that I'll have to go back to Los Angeles with them when they go this fall,because the contract I signed lasts for a year."She sighed."I rode over to tell you about it.It seemed to be good news,when I left home.But now,it's just a part of the black tangle that life's made up of.Aunt Ella started things off by telling me what a disgrace it is for me to work in these pictures.And Uncle Carl--"She shivered in spite of herself."I just can't understand Uncle Carl's going into such a rage.It was--awful."Lite rode for some distance before he lifted his head or spoke.Then he looked at Jean,who was staring straight ahead and seeing nothing save what her thoughts pictured.
He did not say a word about her going to Los Angeles.
He was the bottled-up type;the things that hit him hardest he seldom mentioned,so by that rule it might be inferred that her going hit hard.But his voice was normally calm,and his tone was the tone of authority,which Jean knew very well,and which nearly always amused her because she firmly believed it to be utterly useless.
He said in the tone of an ultimatum:"If you're bound to stay at the ranch,you've got to have somebody with you.I'll ride in and get Hepsy Atwood in the morning.You're getting thin.I don't believe you take time to cook enough to eat.You can't work on soda crackers and sardines.The old lady won't charge much to come and stay with you.I'll come over after I'm through work to-morrow and help her get things looking a little more like living.""You'll do nothing of the sort."Jean looked at him mutinously."I'm all right just as I am.I won't have her,Lite.That's settled."
"Sure,it's settled,"Lite agreed,with more than his usual pertinacity."I'll have her out here by noon,and a supply of real grub.How are you fixed for bedding?""I won't have her,I tell you.You're always trying to make me do things I won't do.Don't be silly.""Sure not."Lite shifted in the saddle with the air of a man who rides at perfect ease with himself and with the world."She'll likely have plenty of bedding of her own,"he meditated,after a brief silence.
"Lite,if you haul Hepsibah out here,I'll send her back!""I'll haul her out,"said Lite in a tone of finality,"but you won't send her back."He paused."She ain't much protection,maybe,"he remarked somewhat enigmatically,"but it'll beat staying alone nights.
You--you can't tell who might come prowling around the place.""What do you mean?Do you know about--"
Jean caught herself on the verge of betrayal.
"You want to keep your gun handy.Just on general principles,"Lite remonstrated."You can't tell;it's away off from everywhere."
"I won't have Hepsy Atwood.Haven't I enough to drive me mad,without her?""Is there anybody else that you'd rather have?"Lite looked at her speculatively.
"No,there isn't.I won't have anybody.It would be a nuisance having some old lady in the house gabbling and gossiping.I'm not the least bit afraid,except,--I'm not afraid,and I like to be alone.I won't have her,Lite."Lite said no more about it until they reached the house,huddled lonesomely against the barren bluff,its windows staring black into the dusk.Jean did not seem to expect Lite to dismount,but he did not wait to see what she expected him to do.In his most matter-of-fact manner he dismounted and turned his horse,still saddled,into the stable with Pard.He preceded Jean up the path,and went into the kitchen ahead of her;lighted a match and found the lamp,and set its flame to brightening the dingy room.
Jean had not done much in the way of making that part of the house more attractive.She used the kitchen to cook in,because the stove was there,and the dishes.She had spread an old braided rug over the brown stain on the floor,and she ate in her own room with the door shut.
Without being told,Lite seemed to know all about her secret aversion to the kitchen.He took up the lamp and went now on a tour of inspection through the house.
