A wan little smile greeted his joke.  The effect on Johnnie himself was more pronounced.  It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the situation.  He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery of it tickled his self-esteem.

“’Course we didn’t really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali.  Tha’s jes’ in the song, as you might say.”  He began to bustle about in preparation for her breakfast.

“Please don’t trouble.  I’ll eat what you’ve got cooked,” she begged.

“It’s no trouble, ma’am.  If the’s a thing on earth I enjoy doin’ it’s sure cookin’.  Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?”

“Either way.  Whichever you like, Mr. Green.”

“You’re eatin’ them,” Johnnie reminded her with a grin.

“On one side, then, please.  Mr. Lindsay says you’re a fine cook.”

“Sho!  I’m no great shakes.  Clay he jes’ brags on me.”

“Lemme eat here in the kitchen.  Then you won’t have to set the table in the other room,” she said.

The puncher’s instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise to let her eat in the kitchen.  She would feel more as though she belonged and was not a guest of an hour.

While she ate he waited on her solicitously.  Inside, he was a river of tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe.  Even now, wan-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive.  In Johnnie’s lonesome life he had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one.  Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation.  It was his business to put their guest at her ease.  That was what Clay had told him to do before he left.

“You’re the doctor, ma’am.  You’ll eat where you say.”

“I—­I don’t like to be so much bother to you,” she said again.  “Maybe I can go away this afternoon.”

“No, ma’am, we won’t have that a-tall,” broke in the range-rider in alarm.  “We’re plumb tickled to have you here.  Clay he feels thataway too.”

“I could keep house for you while I stay,” she suggested timidly.  “I know how to cook—­and the place does need cleaning.”

“Sure it does.  Say, wha’s the matter with you bein’ Clay’s sister, jes’ got in last night on the train?  Tha’s the story we’ll put up to the landlord if you’ll gimme the word.”

“I never had a brother, but if I’d had one I’d ‘a’ wanted him to be like Mr. Lindsay,” she told his friend.

“Say, ain’t he a go-getter?” cried Johnnie eagerly.  “Clay’s sure one straight-up son-of-a-gun.  You’d ought to ‘a’ seen how he busted New York open to find you.”

“Did he?”

Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement.

“I never wrote it.  I never thought of that.  It must have been—­”