Kendric,
looking at her, felt a hot rush of anger at Zoraida for being the cause
of their present condition. Betty lifted her head and caught the
expression molding his face. She was wrapped about with her red gown
and Zoraida's cloak; her ankles were bare; then were scratches on them;
her sandals looked already worn out; her hair was tumbled and snarled.
She shook it loose and began combing it through with her fingers, then
twisting it up into two loose brown braids.
"IL we do have to stay a while," said Betty, gathering her courage in
both hands, looking up at him an managing a smile, "I'll show you how I
can cozy the place up. Tomorrow, while you're doing the man's part and
finding us something to eat, I'll show you what a housekeeper I can be.
Why, I can make this just like home; you'll see."
While he was doing the man's part! In her mind, then, it was all
simplified and reduced to that. His, naturally, was to be the task of
furnishing food, for nothing was clearer than that they must eat and
that filling the larder was Jim's affair and not Betty's. Where he was
to get food and how and what kind of food it might be was to be left to
him. There was Betty for you, quite content to leave such matters
where they properly belonged--in a man's hands. But he might rest
assured that whatever he brought in, be it a handful of acorns or pine
nuts or the carcass of a lean ground squirrel, would be, in Betty's
eye, splendid!
"Somehow," he burst out, "in spite of Zoraida and all the bandits in
Mexico, we'll carry on!"
"Of course," said Betty.
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