A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?"
The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not
been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life
as it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to
it, or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of
the life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was
not in the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something
unusual and defamatory.
"Why, gol darn it, Nance, what's got into you? You bin a man out West,
as good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don't sound
friendly to what's been the game out here, and to all of us that've been
risking our lives to get a livin'."
"What did I say?" asked the girl, unmoved.
"It ain't what you said, it's the sound o' your voice."
"You don't know my voice, Abe. It ain't always the same. You ain't
always about; you don't always hear it."
He caught her arm suddenly. "No, but I want to hear it always. I want
to be always where you are, Nance. That's what's got to be settled
to-day--to-night."
"Oh, it's got to be settled to-night!" said the girl meditatively,
kicking nervously at a log on the fire.
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