Marion had known nothing of all this, save for the hints she had received from Smythe, following the conversation overheard by him. Philip had told her nothing of it in recounting his adventures. With glistening eyes she looked from Claire to Huntington, where they sat open-mouthed, and was thrilled with pride and triumph. Claire at length turned, and looked at her, and smiled. As for Huntington, he was simply (as he explained afterwards, seeking to justify his ready acquiescence) flabbergasted.
"This has been a very bitter business, Thursby," he said. "It's cost me a lot of cattle and money, and I'll not take back a thing I've said about Haig's grabbing everything in sight, and ruining his neighbors. But I will say, after what you've told me, that--damn it, Thursby! he is a man."
"He's ready to fight with you or talk with you, as you wish."
"Then tell him, if he's on the square, it'll be talk."
Claire, ignoring Thursby's presence, ran and snuggled close to Seth, while he put his arm around her. But it was at Marion, _to_ Marion, that Seth looked, seeking the approval that he had never before been able to get from her. Their eyes met, and she nodded, smiling.
"Very well!" said Thursby. "He's coming to see you this afternoon."
"He's coming this afternoon. And he wished me to say explicitly that he will have no gun."
To Huntington this seemed almost incredible. He was heartily sick of the warfare, and glad of any way out of it that would not be too humiliating to himself. But Haig was coming to him; and this meant, surely, that something had occurred to his enemy that would make the event easy for himself, if not quite free from embarrassment. He looked again at Marion; and at last, seeing her radiant countenance, he understood that this was her achievement, that it was for her Haig would be coming unarmed to the house of his bitter foe that afternoon.
"I'm ready," he said to Thursby, with an elation he was only partly able to conceal.
Smythe was the next visitor, arriving in a state of such contrition that Marion pitied him. His jaunty air was gone. He was quite unable to respond to Marion's gentle jesting, seeing that her cheeks were still sunken and pale, that the body whose graces he had so much admired was now palpably thin under her loose clothing. He had blamed himself bitterly for the disaster that had overtaken her, and his sufferings had been real and lasting.