His gaze was now all the stranger for its wistfulness.

Lucy was quick to catch a subtle difference in him, but she could not tell wherein it lay.
"What'd you want ?" asked Joel.
"I've heard a lot of things, Joel," replied Lucy, trying to think of just what she wanted to say.
"Reckon you have," said Joel, dejectedly, and then he sat down on the log and dug holes in the sand with his bare feet.
Lucy had never before seen him look tired, and it seemed that some of the healthy brown of his cheeks had thinned out.

Then Lucy told him, guardedly, a few of the rumors she had heard.
"All thet you say is nothin' to what's happened," he replied, bitterly.
"Them riders mocked the life an' soul out of me." "But, Joel, you shouldn't be so--so touchy," said Lucy, earnestly.
"After all, the joke WAS on you.

Why didn't you take it like a man ?" "But they knew you stole my clothes," he protested.
"Suppose they did.

That wasn't much to care about.