Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/109

 so pleading and earnest. She appeared shocked to see him starting out on foot, as if her hospitality were being shamed.

"I like to walk, thank you," Dunham said, wonder—ing whether he ought to offer her something for his breakfast. He felt that he might, since she was plainly very poor.

"I didn't intend to run away without payin' for my breakfast," he said, "but I guess I'd 'a' done it if you hadn't come out."

She drew back at his offer of half a dollar, looking more sad than insulted.

"I'd break my last hunk of cornbread with you and be happy of the company," she said. "But this grub ain't mine: I'm only cookin' for the men when any of them come in off of the range. It's Mr. Moore's grub, and he'd be so mortified he couldn't speak if he knew you offered to pay."

"Then do me the favor to give it to him, ma'am," Dunham requested earnestly. "If I can mortify that man for fifty cents I'll consider it the biggest bargain for the money a man ever got."

She looked at the vehement young man shrewdly, her head a little to one side, a sharp light of understanding in her wise black eyes.

"I'll give it to him, Mr. Dunham, if I and my old man gits chased off of the place for it," she declared. "And I wish you well wherever you may go."

Dunham struck off up the road, eager to get around the first bend and out of sight before Moore came out with any more of his humorous cracks or de-