of

He was well rid of her.

But all of this was rationalization.

Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night thinking of Ann, and then could not get back to sleep.

Each day he found himself thinking less often of Ann ; ;

He had plenty of work to do.

He could not afford to lose a drop of the precious water, so he spent most of his waking hours along the ditches in his meadows.

In any case, he had no intention of being caught asleep, so he carried his revolver in its holster on his hip and he took his Winchester with him and leaned it against the fence.

It could be some kind of trick Budd had thought up.

No one walked in this country, least of all Ed Dow or Dutch Renfro or any of the rest of the Bar B crew.

Reaching the house ahead of them, he waited with his Winchester in his hands.

Leaning his Winchester against the front of the house, he walked to the girl.

Her face was very thin, and burned by the sun until much of the skin was dead and peeling, the new skin under it red and angry.

Both had blonde hair and blue eyes, and there was even a faint similarity of features.

Morgan filled the dipper from the water bucket on the shelf, went back into the front room, lifted the girl's head, and held the edge of the dipper to her mouth.

He had seen a few nester wagons go through the country, the families almost starving to death, but he had never seen any of them on foot and as bad off as these two.

Morgan returned to the kitchen, built a fire, and carried in several buckets of water from the spring which he poured into the copper boiler that he had placed on the stove.

He brought his Winchester in from the front of the house, then faced the boy.

We ran out of money and we haven't eaten for two days ''.

`` About five miles north of the line ''.

`` The town of Buckhorn's only about six miles from here.

`` There's only one more ranch three miles north of here.