Already the pipe had gone dead, and Craig struggled anew in getting it alight, with the awkwardness of one unused to smoking out of doors.

“Do you like this country, this—­desert?” he digressed suddenly.

“It is the only one I know.”

“You mean know well, doubtless?”

“I have never been outside the State.”

Unconsciously the other shrugged, in an action that was habitual.

“You have something to look forward to then.  I read somewhere that it were better to hold down six feet of earth in an Eastern cemetery than to own a section of land in the West.  I’m beginning to believe it.”

No comment.

“I suppose you will leave though, some time,” pressed the visitor.  “You certainly don’t intend to vegetate here always?”

“I never expect to leave.  I was born here.  I shall die here.”

Once more the shoulders of the Easterner lifted in mute thanksgiving of fundamental difference.  Of a sudden, for some indefinite reason, he felt more at ease in his companion’s presence.  For the time being the sense of antagonism became passive.  What use, after all, was mere physical courage, if one were to bury it in a houseless, treeless waste such as this?  The sense of aloofness, of tranquil superiority, returned.  He even felt a certain pleasure in questioning the other; as one is interested in questioning a child.  Bob Manning’s store and Pete Sweeney were temporarily in abeyance.

“Pardon me, if I seem inquisitive,” he prefaced, “but I’ll probably be here a month or so, and we’ll likely see a good deal of each other.  Are you married?”

“No.”

“You will be, though.”  It was the ultimatum of one unaccustomed to contradiction.  “No man could live here alone.  He’d go insane.”

“I eat at the ranch house sometimes, but I live alone.”

“You won’t do so, though, always.”  Again it was the voice of finality.

The Indian looked straight ahead into the indefinite distance where the earth and sky met.

“No, I shall not do so always,” he corroborated.

“I thought so.”  It was the tolerant approval of the prophet verified.  “I’d be doing the same thing myself if I lived here long.  Conformity’s in the air.  I felt it the moment I left the railroad and struck this—­wilderness.”  Once again the unconscious shoulder shrug.  “It’s an atavism, this life.  I’ve reverted a generation already.  It’s only a question of time till one would be back among the cave-dwellers.  The thing’s in the air, I say.”

Again no comment.  Again for any indication he gave, the Indian might not have heard.

Craig straightened, as one conscious that he was talking over his companion’s head.

“When, if I may ask, is it to be, your marriage, I mean?” he returned.  “While I am here?”

For an instant the other’s eyes dropped until they were hid beneath the long lashes, then they returned to the distance as before.