"She's young; she's sweet; she's beau ..."
"Say, who told you about my wife?" Lytton demanded, drawing himself up.
Bayard stopped with a show of surprise. His earnestness had swept his caution, his sense of the necessity for deception, quite away, but he rallied himself as he answered:
"Why, I judge she is. She's stickin' by you like a sweet woman would."
"Well, what if she is?" Lytton countered, the surprise in his face giving way to sullenness. "We've discussed me and my wife enough for one day. You're inexperienced. You don't know her kind. You don't know women, Bayard. Why, damn their dirty skins, they--"
"You drop that!" Bruce cried, rising and leaning across the table. "You keep your lying, dirty mouth shut or I'll..."
He drew his great fists upward slowly as though they lifted their limit in weight. Then suddenly went limp and smiled down at the face of the other man. He turned away slowly and Lytton drawled.
"Excuse me," said the rancher, with a short laugh. "I'm ... I'm only worked up about a woman myself," reaching out a hand for the casing of the doorway to steady himself. "I'm only wondering what th' best thing to do is.... You said yourself that ... experience was th' only way to learn...."
That afternoon Lytton slept deeply. Of this fact Bayard made sure when, from his work in the little blacksmith shop, he saw a horseman riding toward the ranch from a wash that gouged down into Manzanita Valley. When he saw the man slumbering heavily on his bed, worn from the struggle and the sleeplessness of last night, he closed the door softly and returned to resume the shoeing of the pinto horse that stood dozing in the sunlight.
"Oh, you is it, Benny Lynch?" Bayard called, as the horseman leaned low to open the gate and rode in.
"Fine, Benny. Ain't saw you in a long time. Get down. Feed your horse?"
The newcomer dismounted and, undoing his tie rope, made his pony fast to a post. He was a short, thick set young chap, dressed in rough clothing, wearing hobnailed shoes. His clothes, his saddle, the horse itself belied the impression of a stock man and his shoes gave conclusive evidence that he was a miner. He turned to face Bayard and pushed his hat far back on his head, letting the sun beat down on his honest, bronzed face, peculiarly boyish, yet lined as that of a man who has known the rough edges of life.