They talked of the coming snowstorm, and the advisability of holding the sheep on the bed-ground if it should be a bad one; of the trip to town that he was contemplating; of the coyote that was bothering and the possibility of trapping him. There was no dearth of topics of mutual interest. Nevertheless, Mormon Joe knew that she was holding something in reserve and wondered at this reticence. It came finally when they had finished and still lingered at the table.
"Who do you suppose I met to-day when I was hunting horses?"
"Teeters?" Mormon Joe was tearing a leaf from his book of cigarette papers.
"Guess again."
He shook his head.
"Can't imagine."
She announced impressively: "Mrs. Toomey!"
He was distributing tobacco from the sack upon the crease in the paper with exactitude. He made no comment, so Kate said with increased emphasis: "She was crying!"
Still he was silent, and she demanded: "Aren't you surprised?"
She looked crestfallen, so he asked obligingly: "Where did all of this happen?"
"In a draw a couple of miles this side of Prouty, where I found the horses. They had gone there to get out of the wind and it was by only a chance that I rode down into it.
"She was in the bottom, huddled against a rock, and didn't see me until I was nearly on her. I thought she was sick--she looked terrible."
"And was she?"
"No--she was worried."
"Naturally. Any woman would be who married Toomey."
"About money."
"Indeed." His tone and smile were ironic.
Kate, a trifle disconcerted, continued: "He's had bad luck."
"He's had the best opportunities of any man who's come into the country."
"Anyway," she faltered, "they haven't a penny except when they sell something."
He shrugged a shoulder, then asked teasingly: "Well--what were you thinking of doing about it?"
"I said--I promised," she blurted it out bluntly, "that we'd loan them money."
"What!" incredulously.
"I did, Uncle Joe."
He answered with a frown of annoyance: "You exceeded your authority, Katie."
"But you will, won't you?" she pleaded. "You've never refused me anything that I really wanted badly, and I've never asked much, have I?"
"No, girl, you haven't," he replied gently. "And there's hardly anything you could ask, within reason, that wouldn't be granted."
"But they only need five hundred until he gets into something. You could let them have that, couldn't you?"
His face and eyes hardened.
"I could, but I won't," he replied curtly.
When Prouty was in its infancy, certain citizens had been misled by Mormon Joe's mild eyes, low voice and quiet manner. His easy-going exterior concealed an incredible hardness upon occasions, but this was Kate's first knowledge of it. He never had displayed the slightest authority. In any difference, when he had not yielded to her good-naturedly, they had argued it out as though they were in reality partners. At another time she would have been wounded by his brusque refusal, but to-night it angered her. Because of her intense eagerness and confidence that she had only to ask him, it came as the keenest of disappointments. This together with her fatigue combined to produce a display of temper as unusual in her as Mormon Joe's own attitude.