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If she was a daughter of mine, I’d medjure her length across my knee, full growed and courted though she is. The only one of the outfit that’s wuth while is Judith, an’ she ain’t old woman Rodney’s girl, neither. You hyeard that already, did you? Well, this yere country may be lackin’ in population, but it’s handy as a sewin’-circle in distributin’ news." Mary mentioned Leander.
The rocking-chair now began to recover its accustomed momentum. This much-heralded educational expert was far from terrifying. Indeed, to Mrs. Rodney’s hawklike gaze, that devoured every visible item of Mary’s extremely modest travelling-dress, there was nothing so very wonderful about "the gov’ment from the East." With a deftness compatible only with long practice, Mrs.
"What’s ’H L’ stand for, anyway?" the other cow-puncher asked. "Why, Hell, or, How Long; depends whether you’re with ’em or again ’em." Peter wheeled from the men and headed for the bunch he was cutting out. He fancied that the man had looked at him strangely as he offered a choice of meanings for the "H L"—and yet he could not have known that Peter had gone to Rodney’s cabin last night.
Old Tumlin, his wife, and the son gave themselves up more than ever to the day-dreams of the road, the freedom of the open country, and the spirit of adventure. Rodney’s squaw wife was taken in by some neighbors, good folk who were conversant with all phases of the romance. They stood by her in her hour of trial, and afterwards continued to keep her as a servant.
Mary Carmichael had little difficulty in recognizing Judith Rodney’s step-mother, née Tumlin—she who had been the heroine of the romance lately recorded. Mrs. Rodney’s interest in the girl alighting from the stage was evinced in the palsied motion of the chair as it quivered slightly back and forth in place of the swinging seesaw with which she was wont to wear the hours away.
"Ai-yi!" said old Sally, sharply, and the chair came to an abrupt stand-still. "In the name o’ Heaven, how kem they to let him out?" Mrs. Rodney’s knowledge of the law was of the vaguest; and if incarceration would keep a prisoner out of more grievous trouble, she could not understand giving him his freedom.
Not one in all that company, even the cattle-men whose interests were opposed to Rodney’s, but felt the justice of his errand. "When did they let him out?" whispered the college boy; and then, "Oughtn’t we to do something?" "Yis, me son," whispered Costigan. "We ought to sit still and learn a thing or two." The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point of a knife.
He had his way to make, the same as the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to get Jim Rodney’s sheep off the range, even if they treated him as a felon for the part he had played in their extermination.
It was more than probable that the boys intended "to have fun with him," though his talking, or rather trying to talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was, according to his ethics, plainly none of their business. He knew he wasn’t popular since he had done for Jim Rodney’s sheep, though the crime had never been laid at his door, officially.
Peter took him, and again he settled to sleep, apparently assured that he was in friendly hands. The warm, small body, giving itself with perfect confidence, strongly affected Peter’s heightened susceptibilities. In the very nature of the situation he could be no friend to Jim Rodney, yet here in his arms lay Jim Rodney’s son, loving, trusting him instinctively.
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