She flashed one angry glance at him, stopping in the middle of the road, her head flung back as though ready for battle.  Then, as if by some swift magic of emotion, her expression changed.  “And so you’re ashamed of me, are you?” she asked, her voice sharp but unsteady.  “Ashamed to be seen walking with me?  Darn it!  I know you are!  But I tell you, Mr. Bob Hampton, you won’t be the next time.  And what’s more, you just don’t need to traipse along another step with me now.  I don’t want you.  I reckon I ain’t very much afraid of tackling this Presbyterian woman all alone.”

She swung off fiercely, and the man chuckled softly as he followed, watchfully, through the circling, red dust cloud created by her hasty feet.  The truth is, Mr. Hampton possessed troubles and scruples of his own in connection with this contemplated call.  He had never met the lady; indeed, he could recall very few of her sex, combining respectability and refinement, whom he had met during the past ten years.  But he retained some memory of the husband as having been associated with a strenuous poker game at Placer, in which he also held a prominent place, and it would seem scarcely possible that the wife did not know whose bullet had turned her for some weeks into a sick-nurse.  For Herndon he had not even a second thought, but the possible ordeal of a woman’s tongue was another matter.  A cordial reception could hardly be anticipated, and Hampton mentally braced himself for the worst.

There were some other things, also, but these he brushed aside for the present.  He was not the sort of man to wear his heart upon his sleeve, and all his life long he had fought out his more serious battles in loneliness and silence.  Now he had work to accomplish in the open; he was going to stay with the Kid—­after that, quien sabe?  So he smiled somewhat soberly, swore softly to himself, and strode on.  He had never yet thrown down his cards merely because luck had taken a bad turn.

It was a cheerless-looking house, painted a garish yellow, having staring windows, and devoid of a front porch, or slightest attempt at shade to render its uncomely front less unattractive.  Hampton could scarcely refrain from forming a mental picture of the woman who would most naturally preside within so unpolished an abode—­an angular, hard-featured, vinegar-tempered creature, firm settled in her prejudices and narrowed by her creed.  Had the matter been left at that moment to his own decision, this glimpse of the house would have turned them both back, but the girl unhesitatingly pressed forward and turned defiantly in through the gateless opening.  He followed in silence along the narrow foot-path bordered by weeds, and stood back while she stepped boldly up on the rude stone slab and rapped sharply against the warped and sagging door.  A moment they stood thus waiting with no response from within.  Once she glanced suspiciously around at him, only to wheel back instantly and once more apply her knuckles to the wood.  Before he had conjured up something worth saying the door was partially opened, and a rounded dumpling of a woman, having rosy cheeks, her hair iron-gray, her blue eyes half smiling in uncertain welcome, looked out upon them questioningly.