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The girl's deliberation was in deep contrast to her own emotions. Then, too, the sympathy which had fled from Nan's brown eyes left them full of hard resolve. "You are not going?" Elvine said, pointing at the weapons. Nan's surprise was genuine. "Jeff's in danger." "But you a woman? You can't help. You might even " "Jeff's in danger."
Presently a "hand" appeared leading a saddle horse. He was a youngster, a "barn-hand" who only worked around cattle in times of pressure. But he possessed all the air of a cowpuncher, which he ultimately purposed to become. Elvine watched his leisurely approach, and remembered the days when she would have saddled her own pony. The boy displayed no sign of deference.
John D. Carruthers only saw in Elvine's unusual beauty an asset in her schemes of advancement. While Elvine displayed a cold disregard for the older woman's efforts, and went her own way. Elvine was strong, even as Jeffrey Masters was strong. But while the man's strength lay in the single purpose of achievement, Elvine looked for the ease and luxury which life could legitimately afford her.
He was dwelling with a lover's delight upon the picture she made. Nor was his approval extravagant. Any one must have admitted the justice of it. Nan had admitted it when she beheld her in a prairie saddle, on a prairie pony, with only the wide wealth of grass-land for her setting. Elvine in the saddle suggested a single identity between horse and rider.
And, strangely enough, she remembered some words her mother had once spoken to her. It was at a time before she had engaged herself to her husband. "But Jeff is nothing to you," she said abruptly. There was a new ring in the voice in which she spoke. "Is he?" Nan's eyes looked straight into the wife's. There was no smile in them. There was no emotion lying behind them that Elvine could read.
But he could not restrain the severe contempt in his voice in making the comparison. Vesty had been soothing her face in the baby's frowzled hair. "I told you," she said. But she glanced up at Gurdon, and her face was piteous, his had turned so white. "Come, Gurd'! What d'ye care? Go on, Vesty, ef ye want to. Gurd 'n' me'll tote the baby till Elvine gits back."
He gave her to the full that reassurance of which she stood in need. But for all his sincerity it was as useless as if it had been left unspoken. The letter from Dug McFarlane at Orrville, the recognition of her by the man Sikkem Bruce, had warned Elvine that the sands of her time of happiness were running out. She felt she knew that a gape of despair was already yawning at her feet.
He even seemed to have forgotten that this was the final great event of his new life the bringing of his bride to the home he had prepared for her. But Nan's estimate of him was right. Jeff's was a nature that could not be changed, even by his marriage. His love, his marriage, Elvine; these things were, in reality, merely episodes. Delightful episodes. Before all things his work claimed him.
The softly healthy cheeks, and the perfect profile as she pored over the letter in her hand. Presently Elvine looked up. She did not turn at once to the husband at her side. Her gaze was directed ahead. It ignored the scene of undulating plain, and the distant ramparts of wooded hills. It saw nothing but the images in her own brain, and the conjured thoughts of a troubled heart and conscience.
She had shared in them, too up till that meeting with Elvine van Blooren at the reception. After that ah, well, there had been very little after for Nan. And the man himself. Four days had sufficed to reduce Jeff's feelings to a condition of love-sickness such as is best associated with extreme youth.
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