CHAPTER IX.
Meanwhile, unaware of her husband's sudden relapse to her old border principles and of the visit that had induced it, Mrs.McKinstry was slowly returning from a lugubrious recital of her moods and feelings at the parson's.

As she crossed the barren flat and reached the wooded upland midway between the school-house and the ranch, she saw before her the old familiar figure of Seth Davis lounging on the trail.

In her habitual loyalty to her husband's feuds she would probably have stalked defiantly past him, notwithstanding her late regrets of the broken engagement, but Seth began to advance awkwardly towards her.

In fact, he had noticed the tall, gaunt, plaid-shawled and holland-bonneted figure approaching, and had waited for it.
As he seemed intent upon getting in her way she stopped and raised her right hand warningly before her.

In spite of the shawl and the sun-bonnet, suffering had implanted a rude Runic dignity to her attitude.