back. For a while she followed him with wistful
eyes, then, finding sudden need for consolation,
she hurried off the porch and across to the
corral. Pat was there to receive her, and she
flung her arms around his neck and gave way to
sudden tears.

"Pat," she sobbed, "I -- perhaps I do love him!
Perhaps I have done wrong! I -- I--" She interrupted
herself. "What shall I do, Pat?" she
burst out, bitterly. "Oh, what shall I do?"

Pat could not advise her. But he remained
very still, supporting her weight with dumb patience,
until she turned away, going slowly back
into the house. Then he pressed close into his
corner and sounded a shrill, protracted nicker.

That was all.

He saw the door close. He waited, pursuing
his old habit, for all the lights to go out. And
directly they began to disappear, one by one,
first in the lower half of the house, then in the
upper half, until all save one were extinguished.
This one, as he knew from long experience, was
in the room of his mistress. But though he waited
and watched till the moon slanted behind the
western hills, and the stars to the east dimmed
and faded, and the gray of dawn stole across the
sky above the mountains -- though he waited and
watched till his legs ached from long standing,
and his eyes smarted from their steady vigil, and
the Mexican appeared yawning from the depths
of the stable, and from over toward town rose
sounds of worldly activity -- yet the light in her

[[143]]

p142 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p143w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p144

v?