He stood, slouching a little, watching Taggart until the latter rode well out into the valley. Then without a word he walked over to the sill upon which he had been working before the arrival of Taggart, seized a hammer, and began to drive wedges wherever they were necessary.
Presently he heard a voice behind him, and he turned to confront Betty.
"I heard what you said to Taggart, of course, about him trying to shoot you. I didn't know that. He deserved punishment for it. But I am sure that part of the punishment you dealt him was administered because of the way he talked about me. If that is so, I wish to thank you."
"You might as well save your breath," he said gruffly; "I didn't do it for you."
She laughed. "Then why didn't you choose another place to call him to account?"
He did not answer, driving another wedge home with an extra vicious blow.
She watched him in silence for an instant, and then, with a laugh which might have meant amusement or something akin to it, she turned and walked to the house.
If there was one trait in Betty's character that bothered Calumet more than another, it was her frankness. More than once during the days that followed Neal Taggart's visit Calumet was made to feel the absence of guile in her treatment of him. The glances she gave him were as straightforward and direct as her words, and it became plain to him that with her there were no mental reservations. Her attitude toward him had not changed; she still dealt with him as the school teacher deals with the unruly scholar--with a personal aloofness that promised an ever-widening gulf if he persisted in defying her authority. Calumet got this impression and it grew on him; it was disconcerting, irritating, and he tried hard to shake it off, to no avail.
He had considered carefully the impulse which had moved him to entice Taggart to the Lazy Y, and was convinced that it had been aroused through a desire to take some step to avenge his father. He told himself that if in the action there had been any desire to champion Betty he had not been conscious of it. It angered him to think that she should presume to imagine such a thing. And yet he had felt a throb of emotion when she had thanked him--a reluctant, savage, resentful satisfaction which later changed to amusement. If she believed he had thrashed Taggart in defense of her, let her continue to believe that. It made no difference one way or another. But he would take good care to see that she should have no occasion to thank him again. She did not interfere with the work, which went steadily on. The ranchhouse began to take on a prosperous appearance. Within a week after the beginning of the work the sills were all in, the rotted bottoms of the studding had been replaced, and the outside walls patched up. During the next week the old porches were torn down and new ones built in their places. At the end of the third week the roof had been repaired, and then there were some odds and ends that had to be looked to, so that the fourth week was nearly gone when Dade and Calumet cleared up the débris. It was Dade who, in spite of Calumet's remonstrances, went inside to announce the news to Betty, and she came out with him and looked the work over with a critical, though approving, eye. Calumet was watching her, and when she had concluded her inspection she turned to him with a smile.