“You are the same, same Lin everyways,” she said.  “A woman is too many for you still, Lin!” she whispered.

At her summons he looked up from his revery.

“Lin, I would not have treated you so.”

The caress that filled her voice was plain.  His look met hers as he sat quite still, his arms on the table.  Then he took his turn at laughing.

“You!” he said.  “At least I’ve had plenty of education in you.”

“Lin, Lin, don’t talk that brutal to me to-day.  If yus knowed how near I come shooting myself with ‘Neighbor.’  That would have been funny!

“I knowed yus wanted to tear that pistol out of my hand because it was hern.  But yus never did such things to me, fer there’s a gentleman in you somewheres, Lin.  And yus didn’t never hit me, not even when you come to know me well.  And when I seen you so unexpected again to-night, and you just the same old Lin, scaring Lusk with shooting them chickens, so comic and splendid, I could ‘a’ just killed Lusk sittin’ in the wagon.  Say, Lin, what made yus do that, anyway?”

“I can’t hardly say,” said the cow-puncher.  “Only noticing him so turruble anxious to quit me—­well, a man acts without thinking.”

“You always did, Lin.  You was always a comical genius.  Lin, them were good times.”

“Which times?”

“You know.  You can’t tell me you have forgot.”

“I have not forgot much.  What’s the sense in this?”

“Yus never loved me!” she exclaimed.

“Shucks!”

“Lin, Lin, is it all over?  You know yus loved me on Bear Creek.  Say you did.  Only say it was once that way.”  And as he sat, she came and put her arms round his neck.  For a moment he did not move, letting himself be held; and then she kissed him.  The plates crashed as he beat and struck her down upon the table.  He was on his feet, cursing himself.  As he went out of the door, she lay where she had fallen beneath his fist, looking after him and smiling.

McLean walked down Box Elder Creek through the trees toward the stable, where Lusk had gone to put the horse in the wagon.  Once he leaned his hand against a big cotton-wood, and stood still with half-closed eyes.  Then he continued on his way.  “Lusk!” he called, presently, and in a few steps more, “Lusk!” Then, as he came slowly out of the trees to meet the husband he began, with quiet evenness, “Your wife wants to know—­” But he stopped.  No husband was there.  Wagon and horse were not there.  The door was shut.  The bewildered cow-puncher looked up the stream where the road went, and he looked down.  Out of the sky where daylight and stars were faintly shining together sounded the long cries of the night hawks as they sped and swooped to their hunting in the dusk.  From among the trees by the stream floated a cooler air, and distant and close by sounded the splashing water.  About the meadow where Lin stood his horses fed, quietly crunching.