"Man," said she, rising and knocking her pipe against her bony
knee, "you talk like a fool. If my first husband was alive, he might
maybe answer that for you."
CHAPTER XXIII
ISSUE JOINED
Later in the evening, Mandy McGovern having left me, perhaps for the
purpose of assisting her protegee in the somewhat difficult art of
drying buckskin clothing, I was again alone on the river bank, idly
watching the men out on the bars, struggling with their teams and box
boats. Orme had crossed the river some time earlier, and now he joined
me at the edge of our disordered camp.
"How is the patient getting along?" he inquired. I replied, somewhat
surlily, I fear, that I was doing very well, and thenceforth intended to
ride horseback and to comport myself as though nothing had happened.
"I am somewhat sorry to hear that," said he, still smiling in his own
way. "I was in hopes that you would be disposed to turn back down the
river, if Belknap would spare you an escort east."
I looked at him in surprise. "I don't in the least understand why I
should be going east, when my business lies in precisely the opposite
direction," I remarked, coolly.
"Very well, then, I will make myself plain," he went on, seating himself
beside me.
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