nd confronted her with the question, What next? Something
certainly would be next. With all her talking, she confined herself to
the details of that one day's experience. It seemed capable of
indefinite expansion; there would never be any end unless she made it.
Having supported herself in conversational flight so long, she began to
feel that anything was better than suspense. She must do something.
With this in mind she ceased and looked out into the night. The stars,
a vast audience, had all taken their places. She leaned forward and
began removing the dishes from her napkins.

[Illustration: The stars, a vast audience, had all taken their places]

"It is time for me to be going," she said.

He sat up straight--as suddenly erect as if he had been caught sleeping
in the saddle.

"Going! Going where?"

"I'm going--on my way."

"Why, town is seventeen miles from here!"

"Oh, I can walk if--if I only knew the way."

"And hear the coyotes? And no light!"

Getting his small heels directly under him, he rose to six feet and
looked directly down on her. It was as if he had ascended to the top
of his stature to get a full view of such a proposition. "Pshaw!" he
said. "Stay right here. I 'll fix you up all right."

Without pausing for further parley, or even looking to her for assent,
he turned and went into the shack. From the inside of this
sleeping-place there came sounds of energetic house-cleaning: pieces of
property came tumbling out of the door--an old saddle-blanket, a yellow
slicker, a pair of boots, a tin bucket. Finally a branding-iron
bounded back from the heap and fell rattling on the door-sill; then
there was a sound of wiping and dusting out. Janet sat silent, her
hands in her lap. In a little while he came crawling backwards out of
the door and brushed the accumulated dirt off the door-sill with a
light blue shirt. He went in again, and after a moment appeared with
the red blanket, which he shook so that it made loud reports on the air
and then carried to the fire for inspection, and to find the long and
short of it.

"I guess there is n't any head or foot to this, is there?" He smiled
dryly as if this comment pleased him; and without expecting an answer
he went into the shack with it and busied himself again.

"There, now!" he remarked as he came out. "You can fix up the little
things to suit yourself. And if there's anything else, just let me
know and I 'll do it for you."