had no real ma, why—it would look like it was up to you.”
{22}
“What’s that?” demanded Thad suspiciously.
“That’s what they call love,” returned the other gently. “Growin’ up like Marta has, with jest us two old, dried-up, desert rats, she don’t know no more about love an’ its consequences than—than—nothin’.”
Marta’s father dropped his brush and kicked it viciously across the stable. Nugget danced with excitement.
“Love! Holy Cats! What fool notion’ll take you next? You don’t need to worry none. Some feller will happen along some day an’ tell her more about love in a minute than you’ve ever knowed in all your life.”
“That’s jest it,” returned the other. “Some feller is bound to tell her, jest like you say. He’ll slip up on her quiet like, when she ain’t suspicionin’ nothin’, an’ break it to her sudden ’fore she knows where she’s at. That’s how them consequences happen. An’ that’s why she ought to know beforehand, so’s she can be watchin’ out.”
Thad was rubbing his bald head seeking, apparently, for an answer sufficiently crushing, when a clear call came from the house.
“Daddy—Oh, Daddy, I am ready.”
With frantic haste, the Pardners, working to{23}gether as if they had never had a difference, saddled and bridled the pinto. Together they led the little horse to the house.
{23}
When the girl was in the saddle, she looked down into their upturned faces with such an expression of girlish affection and womanly thoughtfulness that the two old men grinned with sheepish delight and pride.
“You will find your dinner all ready for you,” she said, while Nugget tossed his head, impatient to be off. “It is on the table, covered with a cloth. I’ll be home in time for supper. Adios.” She lifted the bridle rein and the pinto loped away.
The Pardners stood watching while she opened and closed the gate, cowboy fashion, without dismounting. With a wave of her hand she rode on up the cañon while the two old men followed her with their eyes until she passed from sight around a turn in the cañon wall.
Thad spoke slowly:
“You’re plumb right, Bob.
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