her first flurry, but Rawlins was beginning to feel the strain of anxiety. He believed there was something between Mrs. Peck and Edith which the sheepwoman had concealed, responsible for the girl's sudden desertion of the ranch.
A feeling of resentment toward Edith for her precipitate action, her cold expression therein of complete aloofness from his affairs and all interest in them, had hardened Rawlins to her welfare for a while. Now this feeling was clearing out of his mind, giving place to fear that Edith had not gone entirely of her own free will. The girl was not so shallow and heartless as to pull out like that after the unworded understanding that had grown up between them. She would have come to him with her troubles, he believed, unless she had been goaded beyond forbearance or driven away outright.
Rawlins had returned from Lost Cabin shortly before noon on the fifth day since the fight, a cloud of anxiety concerning Edith darkening the outlook, even obscuring everything beyond that hour. He seemed to be living in little jerks of time, hope, expectation, clearing a space an arm's length ahead, like a man traveling in a heavy fog.
He unsaddled Graball and turned him out to graze, the horse having become so entirely domesticated and affectionate that he would come running at a call or a whistled summons, and turned his one-handed efforts to preparing the mid-day meal. He had brought potatoes and unions, unusual luxuries, from town that trip, with anticipation of an old-time Kansas dish of the two vegetables sliced and boiled together for sup-
