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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. If you hadn't taken it so
hard they'd have let up on you."
"Mebbe I might have stood that. But they taunted me with bein'--loony about
you.


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