Part 25

She took her hand down and laughed lightly. He could not hear the joyful relief in the laugh, but she could. "My, but you have become attached to Redbud, haven't you? Hasn't it been lonely for you here?"

"Well, the cherry hat little girl up above Sowfoot has been a comfort. And then I've studied a heap."

"Studied what?"

"Mizzourah!"

"Redbud and Sowfoot are good teachers," she laughed; then her face sobered quickly, "but I don't think you should stay down here by the river when you are ill," she said. Her sweet, wistful interest was balsamic to him. For a moment he tried to look sicker than he was.

"Oh, it's nothing, nothing," he protested in a gone voice.

"Yes, it is something," she had the corn-dodgers going over a slow fire and was dubiously regarding a second skillet that he had brought her. "Don't you ever try water for it?" she interrupted herself to ask. He admitted that he was not as careful of the skillet as he should be, and she went back to her first anxiety, "Why do you stay here when you are ill?"

"Oh, I'm not ill a bit, not really." He had forgotten to be ill. Regarding her dreamily from his bench he was wishing that the moment could be eternity, that he could be hungry forever and that forever she could make corn-dodgers for him.

"I think you are sick. Something is the matter with you?"

"Yes," he changed his position a little on the bench, "something is the matter with me."

"Well, why don't you go on and say what?" She put the skillet on some of the coals and the coffee-pot on the skillet, being too busy to look around at him.

"Oh!"--he wanted to tell her, but his pride saved him in time. She was in rich in gold and land and cattle, in ore, too now; and he? He didn't know how he was going to fill his meal sack the next time it was empty. That was where matters had got with him. "I think I won't go on and say what, after all; let's not bother. Let's just be happy for the minute. That's something I have learned out here in Missouri, just to be happy when you get the chance, minute by minute, no matter what sort of hours are to come after. This, now, is so much more than I had hoped for. I hadn't really hoped to see you again before----"

"Before what?"

"Well, a fellow can't go on like this forever, can he? I expect I am going to cut all this."

"What! And leave Uncle Bernique?"

"Uncle Bernique can hold the claim alone, you know. And I'm wasting hope and energy here. What's the use in staying longer?"

She was very busy with the bacon now and he did not see her face. There was a wild quiver on it, of grief, fright, dismay.

"You ought not to leave Uncle Bernique and Piney, I am sure of that," she said at last earnestly, almost commandingly.

"Heigh-ho! I think Bernique is getting restless, too. He will be drifting off soon on that tidal wave of ore fever that comes over him; Piney has been gone for a great while. It's pretty lonely. It's getting on my nerves. Of course I shouldn't pet my nerves if I had any hope about the run here, but I haven't. I think that the work we have carried on is fairly conclusive."

"But wait a minute, didn't you buy this land? Didn't you put some money in it?"

Steering laughed blithely. "Not much," he said. The thing that made him laugh was the fact that though it was not much it was all that he had, and it was, in a way, amusing to consider how he was to get away from Canaan. Looking at Sally Madeira, who suggested luxury nonchalantly, trouble about ways and means was bound to be untimely and laughable. Indeed, looking at Sally Madeira all troubles were more or less laughable.

"You haven't gone to Europe?" he reminded her, after he had drunk her health in the coffee.

"No! I haven't gone."

"Are you going?"

"Not unless Father's health improves."

"Isn't he well?"

"No," her face clouded sadly, "he is over-working. Oh, you don't know how sorry I am," she began, and faltered.

"Sorry? for him?"