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Updated: June 14, 2025
In a brief time Randerson learned that Ruth had gone riding alone about noon, and had not returned. Randerson also discovered that the girl had questioned a puncher who had ridden in asking him about Chavis' shack and the basin. Randerson's face, red from the blows that had landed on it, paled quickly. "I reckon she's takin' her time about comin' in," he said.
Her hands had been clasped in front of her; they dropped to her sides when she saw Randerson, and her fingers began to twist nervously into the edges of her apron. A deep breath, which was almost a sigh of relief, escaped her. "I thought it was Dad!" she said. Evidently Masten had likewise expected the horseman to be her father, for at her exclamation he turned swiftly.
Coming down through the break in the canyon, riding slightly in advance of Hagar, Randerson heard the report of a pistol, distant and muffled. He turned in the saddle and looked at Hagar questioningly. "That come from your shack!" he said shortly; "Ruth there alone?"
And then she saw Randerson going from the ranchhouse toward the men who were congregated in front of the bunkhouse; saw Pickett's right hand fall to his side as though it rested on a holster, and she started out of her chair, for illumination now came to her. Half way to the bunkhouse, Randerson was met by Uncle Jepson.
And also, lurking deep in her unsophisticated mind was a most feminine impulse to sting Masten to jealousy. She looked up to meet Vickers' gaze, fixed curiously upon her. "Could you recommend this man Randerson?" she asked. "Why, ma'am, he's got the best reputation of any man in these parts!" "But is he efficient?" "Meanin' does he know his business? Well, I reckon.
He had been wiser than she; he had traced the line that divided reason from the primitive passions man from beast. His only reference to the incident a wordless one, which she felt was sufficiently eloquent came when one day, while they were standing beside the corral fence, looking at the horses, they saw Randerson riding in.
Yet by afternoon Ruth had tired of waiting; she had no special reason for certainty that Randerson would arrive that day, and so she went riding. She went alone, for Masten seemed to have hidden himself at least, she could not find him.
If he could only get the man to talking, to watch the working of that lower lip! His glance roved around the fire. Seven men, besides the cook asleep under the wagon and Randerson, were lying around the fire in positions similar to his own. Randerson, the one exception, was seated on the edge of the chuck box, its canvas cover pushed aside, one leg dangling, his elbow resting on the other.
But my foot did hurt terribly." "Why, sure. I expect I deserved to get roasted." Again there was a silence. Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill with the instinct of protection.
He attracted her no longer her heart was shut to him. And, during the days of Masten's continuing absence in the times when she reflected on her feelings toward Randerson on the day he had taught her the use of the pistol, she bitterly reproached herself for her momentary lack of loyalty to the Easterner.
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