He stood chewing and looking at his departing visitor.
"Some folks is _too_ damn dirty," said Wid Gardner to himself as he passed now along the edge of the willow bank toward the front gate of his own ranch, a half-mile up the stream.

"And him talking about a woman!" He flung out his hand in disgust at the mere thought.
That is to say, he did at first.

Then he began to walk more slowly.

A touch of reflectiveness came upon his own face.
"Still," said he to himself after a time--speaking aloud as men of the wilderness sometimes learn to do--"I don't know!" He turned into his own gate, approached his own cabin, its exterior much like that of the one which but now he had left.

He paused for a moment at the door as he looked in, regarding its somewhat neater appearance.
"Well, and even so," said he.