He went to the door, looked in, and shut it again.  He walked to his shed and stood contemplating his own wagon alone there.  Then he lifted away a piece of trailing vine from the gate of the corral, while the turkeys moved their heads and watched him from the roof.  A rope was hanging from the corral, and seeing it, he dropped the vine.  He opened the corral gate, and walked quickly back into the middle of the field, where the horses saw him and his rope, and scattered.  But he ran and herded them, whirling the rope, and so drove them into the corral, and flung his noose over two.  He dragged two saddles—­men’s saddles—­ from the stable, and next he was again at his cabin door with the horses saddled.  She was sitting quite still by the table where she had sat during the meal, nor did she speak or move when she saw him look in at the door.

“Lusk has gone,” said he.  “I don’t know what he expected you would do, or I would do.  But we will catch him before he gets to Drybone.”

She looked at him with her dumb stare.  “Gone?” she said.

“Get up and ride,” said McLean.  “You are going to Drybone.”

“Drybone?” she echoed.  Her voice was toneless and dull.

He made no more explanations to her, but went quickly about the cabin.  Soon he had set it in order, the dishes on their shelves, the table clean, the fire in the stove arranged; and all these movements she followed with a sort of blank mechanical patience.  He made a small bundle for his own journey, tied it behind his saddle, brought her horse beside a stump.  When at his sharp order she came out, he locked his cabin and hung the key by a window, where travellers could find it and be at home.

She stood looking where her husband had slunk off.  Then she laughed. 
“It’s about his size,” she murmured.

Her old lover helped her in silence to mount into the man’s saddle—­this they had often done together in former years—­and so they took their way down the silent road.  They had not many miles to go, and after the first two lay behind them, when the horses were limbered and had been put to a canter, they made time quickly.  They had soon passed out of the trees and pastures of Box Elder and came among the vast low stretches of the greater valley.  Not even by day was the river’s course often discernible through the ridges and cheating sameness of this wilderness; and beneath this half-darkness of stars and a quarter moon the sage spread shapeless to the looming mountains, or to nothing.

“I will ask you one thing,” said Lin, after ten miles.

The woman made no sign of attention as she rode beside him.

“Did I understand that she—­Miss Buckner, I mean—­mentioned she might be going away from Separ?”

“How do I know what you understood?”

“I thought you said—­”

“Don’t you bother me, Lin McLean.”  Her laugh rang out, loud and forlorn—­ one brief burst that startled the horses and that must have sounded far across the sage-brush.  “You men are rich,” she said.