led the reins off his arm and dropped them to the ground over the
horse's head, the simple process which hitches a desert horse. He left
Pen with long strides and entered the tent.

"Sara, if I hear you talk to Pen that way again, I don't care if you are
forty times a cripple, I'll punch your face in! What's the matter with
you, anyhow? Did your tongue get a twist with your back?"

"Get out of here!" shouted Sara.

Jim recovered his poise at the sight of Pen's anxious eyes. "Now
Sweetness," he said to Sara, "don't hurry me! You make me so nervous
when you speak that way to me! I think I'll get a burro up here for you
to talk to. He'd understand the richness of your vocabulary. Look here
now, Sara, we all know you're having a darned hard time and there isn't
anything we wouldn't do for you. Don't you realize that Pen is
sacrificing her whole life to being your nurse girl? Don't you think you
ought to make it as easy for her as you can?"

"Easy!" mocked Sara. "Easy for anyone that can walk and run and come and
go? What consideration do they need?"

Pen and Jim winced a little. There was a whole world of tragedy in
Sara's mockery. He looked fat and middle-aged. His hair was graying
fast. His fingers trembled a good deal although the strength in his arms
still was prodigious. Yet Pen and Jim both had a sense of resentment
that Sara should take his life tragedy so ill, a feeling that he was
indecorous in flaunting his bitterness in their faces. As if he sensed
their resentment, Sara went on sneeringly:

"Easy for you two, with your youth and good looks and health to
patronize me and fancy how much more decently you could die than I. I
wish the two of you were chained to my inert body. How sweet and patient
you would be! Bah! You weary me. Pen, will you go over to Mrs. Flynn's
for the root beer she promised me?"

Pen made her escape gladly. When she was out of hearing Jim said, "Sara,
why do you want the building charges repudiated?"

"Who said I wanted them repudiated?" asked Sara.

"A tent is a poor place to hold secrets," replied Jim. "Did you come
here to do me dirt, Sara? Did I ever do you any harm?"

Sara turned purple. He raised himself on his elbow. "Why," he shouted,
"did you destroy my chances with Pen by getting her love? You wanted it
only to discard it!"

CHAPTER XVII

TOO LATE FOR LOVE

"Honor is the thing that makes humans different from
dogs--some dogs! When women have it, it is