"I'm sure ashamed of you.

We'll stop here at the stable and get the horses.

You can ride sideways as far as the Allens', and get your riding-skirt and come on.

The sooner you are on top of a horse, the quicker you're going to come outa that state of mind." It was pitifully amusing to see Lite Avery attempt to bully any one,--especially Jean,--who might almost be called Lite's religion.
The idea of that long, lank cowpuncher whose shyness was so ingrained that it had every outward appearance of being a phlegmatic coldness, assuming the duties of Jean's dad and undertaking to see that she grew up according to directions, would have been funny, if he had not been so absolutely in earnest.
His method of comforting her and easing her through the first stage of black despair was unorthodox, but it was effective.

Because she was too absorbed in her own misery to combat him openly, he got her started toward the Bar Nothing and away from the friends whose enervating pity was at that time the worst influence possible.