"
Ford said something under his breath and untied his rope from the
saddle. He knew about where the horse had been feeding when he saw him,
and he judged that it would naturally graze in the direction of
home--which would probably be somewhere off to the southeast, since the
trail ran more or less in that direction. Without a word to the girl, or
a glance toward her, he started up the hill, hoping to get his bearings
and a sight of the horse from the top. He could not remember when he had
been so angry with a woman. "If she was a man," he gritted as he
climbed, "I'd give her a thrashing or leave her out there, just as she
deserves. That's the worst of dealing with a woman--she can always hand
it to you, and you've got to give her a grin and thank-you, because she
ain't a man."
He glanced back, then, and saw her sitting with her head dropped forward
upon her hands. There was something infinitely pitiful and lonely in her
attitude, and he knitted his brows over the contrast between it and her
manner when he left her. "I don't suppose a woman knows, herself, what
she means, half the time," he hazarded impatiently.
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