Rowland, with the spontaneous hospitality
of the frontier, was upon her feet. Into a quaint Indian basket of
coloured rushes went a roast grouse, barely touched, from the table. A
loaf of bread followed: a bottle of water from the wooden pail in the
corner. "You're welcome, friend," she proffered.
Hans Mueller hesitated, accepted. A swift moisture dimmed his eyes.
"Thanks, lady," he halted. "You're good people, anyway. I'm sorry--" He
lifted his battered hat, shuffled anew toward the doorway. "Good-bye."
Impassive as before, Rowland returned to his neglected dinner.
"No wonder the Sioux play us whites for cowards, and think we'll run at
sight of them," he commented.
Mrs. Rowland, standing motionless in the single exit through which
Mueller had gone, did not answer.
"Better come and finish, Margaret," suggested her husband.
Again there was no answer, and Rowland, after eating a few mouthfuls,
pushed back his chair. Even then she did not speak, and, rising, the man
made his way across the room to put an arm with rough affection around
his wife's waist.
"Are you, too, scared at last?" he voiced gently.
The woman turned swiftly and, in action almost unbelievable after her
former unemotional certainty, dropped her head to his shoulder.
"Yes, I think I am a bit, Sam. For baby's sake I wish we'd gone too; but
now,"--her arms crept around his neck, closed,--"but now--now it's too
late!"
For a long minute, and another, the man did not stir but involuntarily
his arms had tightened until, had she wished, the woman could not have
turned.
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