"I'm kind of sorry for Winston because there's grit in him, and he's never had a show," he said.
"Still, I figure he's not worth your going out gunning after, Nettie." The girl said nothing, but there was a little flush in her face which had not been there before, when she busied herself with the dishes.
In the meanwhile Winston was harnessing two bronco horses to a very dilapidated wagon.

They were vicious beasts, but he had bought them cheap from a man who had some difficulty in driving them, while the wagon had been given him, when it was apparently useless, by a neighbor.

The team had, however, already covered thirty miles that day, and started homewards at a steady trot without the playful kicking they usually indulged in.

Here and there a man sprang clear of the rutted road, but Winston did not notice him or return his greeting.

He was abstractedly watching the rude frame houses flit by, and wondering, while the pain in his side grew keener, when he would get his supper, for it happens not infrequently that the susceptibilities are dulled by a heavy blow, and the victim finds a distraction that is almost welcome in the endurance of a petty trouble.
Winston was very hungry, and weary alike in body and mind.