“I work for them,” Andy told her truthfully in his deep amazement, and immediately repented and wished that he had not been so virtuous.  With Andy, to wish was to do—­given the opportunity.

“Then I can go with you out to their farm—­ranchero!  How nice!  And on the way you can tell me all about yourself and your life and hopes—­because I do want to get in touch with you all, you know—­and I’ll tell you all my plans for you; I have some beautiful plans!  And we’ll be very good friends by the time we reach our destination, I’m sure.  I want you to feel from the start that I am a true friend, and that I have your welfare very much at heart.  Without the confidence of my cowboys, I can do nothing.  Are there any more at home like you?”

Andy looked at her suspiciously, but it was so evident she never meant to quote comic opera, that he merely wondered anew.  He struggled feebly against temptation, and fell from grace quite willingly.  It isn’t polite to “throw a load” at a lady, but then Andy felt that neither was it polite for a lady to come out with the avowed intention of improving him and his fellows; it looked to him like butting in where she was not wanted, or needed.

“Yes, ma’am, there’s quite a bunch, and they’re pretty bad.  I don’t believe you can do much for ’em.”  He spoke regretfully.

“Do they—­drink?” she asked, leaning forward and speaking in the hushed voice with which some women approach a tabooed subject.

“Yes ma’am, they do.  They’re hard drinkers.  And they”—­he eyed her speculatively, trying to guess the worst sins in her category—­“they play cards—­gamble—­and swear, and smoke cigarettes and—­”

“All the more need of someone to help them overcome,” she decided solemnly.  “What you need is a coffee-house and reading room here, so that the young men will have some place to go other than the saloons.  I shall see to that right away.  And with the Mutual Improvement and Social Society organized and working smoothly, and a library of standard works for recreation, together with earnest personal efforts to promote temperance and clean-living, I feel that a wonderful work can be done.  I saw you drive into town, so I know you can take me out with you; I hope you are going to start soon.  I feel very impatient to reach the field and put my sickle to the harvest.”

Andy mentally threw up his hands before this unshakable person.  He had meant to tell her that he had come on horseback, but she had forestalled him.  He had meant to discourage her—­head her off, he called it to himself.  But there seemed no way of doing it.  He pushed back his chair and rose, though he had not tasted his pie, and it was lemon pie at that.  He had some faint notion of hurrying out of town and home before she could have time to get ready; but she followed him to the door and chirped over his shoulder that it wouldn’t take her two minutes to put on her wraps.  Andy groaned.