It was dinner hour at the hotel, an hour most dreadful to Joan because
of the hurry, the strangeness, and the crowd, because of the
responsibility of her work, but chiefly because at that hour she
expected the appearance of her father. Her eyes were often on the
door. It opened to admit the young men, the riders and ranchers who
hung up their hats, swaggered with a little jingle of spurs to their
chairs; clean-faced, clean-handed, wet-haired, murmuring low-voiced
courtesies,--"Pass me the gravy, please," "I wouldn't be carin' fer
any, thank you,"--and lifting to the faces of waiting girls now and
again their strange, young, brooding eyes, bold, laughing, and afraid,
hungry, pathetic, arrogant, as the eyes of young men are, tameless and
untamable, but full of the pathos of the untamed. Joan's heart shook a
little under their looks, but when Pierre lifted his eyes to her, her
heart stood still. She had not seen them following her progress around
the room. He had come in late, and finding no place at the long,
central table sat apart at a smaller one under a high, uncurtained
window. By the time she met his eyes they were charged with light;
smoky-blue eyes they were, the iris heavily ringed with black, the
pupils dilated a little. For the first time it occurred to Joan,
looking down with a still heart into his eyes, that a man might be
beautiful. The blood came up from her heart to her face. Her eyes
struggled away from his.
"What's yer name, gel?" murmured Pierre.
"Joan Carver."
"You run away from home?" He too had heard of her.
"Yes."
"Will your father be takin' you back?"
"I won't be goin' with him."
She was about to pass on. Pierre cast a swift look about the
table--bent heads and busy hands, eyes cast down, ears, he knew,
alert. It was a land of few women and of many men. He must leave in
the morning early and for months he would not be back. He put out a
long, hard hand, caught Joan's wrist and gave it a queer, urgent
shake, the gesture of an impatient and beseeching child.
"Will you be comin' home with me, gel?" asked Pierre hurriedly.
She looked at him, her lips apart, and she shook her head.
Maud's voice screamed at her from the kitchen door. Pierre let her go.
She went on, very white.
She did not sleep at all that night. Her father's face, Pierre's face,
looked at her. In the morning Pierre would be gone. She had heard Maud
say that the "queer Landis feller would be makin' tracks back to that
ranch of his acrost the river." Yes, he would be gone. She might have
been going with him. She felt the urgent pressure of his hand on her
arm, in her heart. It shook her with such a longing for love, for all
the unknown largesse of love, that she cried. The next morning, pale,
she came down and went about her work. Pierre was not at breakfast,
and she felt a sinking of heart, though she had not known that she had
built upon seeing him again. Then, as she stepped out at the back to
empty a bucket, there he was!