"Don't you think you have talked enough for the present?" she
smiled, and added: "If I make you talk whenever I sit beside you
I shall have to stay away."

"That's where y'u've ce'tainly got the drop on me, ma'am. I'm a
clam till y'u give the word."

Before a week he was able to sit up in a chair for an hour or
two, and soon after could limp into the living room with the aid
of a walking stick and his hostess. Under the tan he still wore
an interesting pallor, but there could be no question that he was
on the road to health.

"A man doesn't know what he's missing until he gets shot up and
is brought to the Lazy D hospital, so as to let Miss Messiter
exercise her Christian duty on him," he drawled, cheerfully,
observing the sudden glow on her cheek brought by the reference
to his unanswered question.

He made the lounge in the big sunny window his headquarters. From
it he could look out on some of the ranch activities when she was
not with him, could watch the line riders as they passed to and
fro and command a view of one of the corrals. There was always,
too, the turquoise sky, out of which poured a flood of light on
the roll of hilltops. Sometimes he read to himself, but he was
still easily tired, and preferred usually to rest. More often she
read aloud to him while he lay back with his leveled eyes gravely
on her till the gentle, cool abstraction she affected was
disturbed and her perplexed lashes rose to reproach the intensity
of his gaze.