Mrs. Beasley did not blench.  She only gave her head a slight toss.  “Ef you men can’t get along with the coffee and flapjacks I’m going to give ye, made with my own hands, ye kin just toddle right along to the first bar, and order your tangle-foot there.  Ef it’s a barkeeper you’re looking for, and not a lady, say so!”

The novel audacity of this speech, and the fact that it suggested that preoccupation he hoped for, relieved Ira for a moment, while it enchanted the guests as a stroke of coquettish fascination.  Mrs. Beasley triumphantly disappeared in the kitchen, slipped off her cuffs and set to work, and in a few moments emerged with a tray bearing the cakes and steaming coffee.  As neither she nor her husband ate anything (possibly owing to an equal preoccupation) the guests were obliged to confine their attentions to the repast before them.  The sun, too, was already nearing the horizon, and although its nearly level beams acted like a powerful search-light over the stretching plain, twilight would soon put an end to the quest.  Yet they lingered.  Ira now foresaw a new difficulty:  the cows were to be brought up and fodder taken from the barn; to do this he would be obliged to leave his wife and the deputy together.  I do not know if Mrs. Beasley divined his perplexity, but she carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself.  Ira’s heart leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her.  But here rustic simplicity seemed to be equal to the occasion.  “Ef I propose to do Ira’s work,” said Mrs. Beasley, with provocative archness, “it’s because I reckon he’ll do more good helpin’ you catch your man than you’ll do helpin’ me!  So clear out, both of ye!” A feminine audacity that recalled the deputy to himself, and left him no choice but to accept Ira’s aid.  I do not know whether Mrs. Beasley felt a pang of conscience as her husband arose gratefully and limped after the deputy; I only know that she stood looking at them from the door, smiling and triumphant.

Then she slipped out of the back door again, and ran swiftly to the barn, fastening on her clean cuffs and collar as she ran.  The fugitive was anxiously awaiting her, with a slight touch of brusqueness in his eagerness.

“Thought you were never coming!” he said.

She breathlessly explained, and showed him through the half-opened door the figures of the three men slowly spreading and diverging over the plain, like the nearly level sun-rays they were following.  The sunlight fell also on her panting bosom, her electrified sandy hair, her red, half-opened mouth, and short and freckled upper lip.  The relieved fugitive turned from the three remoter figures to the one beside him, and saw, for the first time, that it was fair.  At which he smiled, and her face flushed and was irradiated.