He probably never should see Zora again, for he felt that his way led wide from that land. It gave him a sinking pang to think of that, for Zora was a girl that a man could easily like too well for his own peace. It made him lonesome and hollow-feeling to think of the entrancing allurement of her round white chin.
Bill rode along with his head bent, his heart as heavy as the sour biscuit dough he had mixed that morning. His road was drawing out between him and Zora; she would soon be far behind him, for his path would not lead back that way again, the one precious reality among the false figures and fancies which romance had set to deceive his eagerly credulous eyes.
How could he have been so stupid as to think of humbling Moore's arrogance and bringing his fortunes low without including Zora in the disaster? She would suffer as keenly as her father in any humiliation or loss that might fall on him. It was strange, but he had not thought of Zora as John Moore's daughter while his rage drove him on against the cattleman. It was hard, even in sober sanity and half-acknowledged regret, to think of Zora in that relation. She was no more like her father than an egg is like a hen.
A nice girl, a generous girl, where her father was overbearing, full of loud egotism, and profanely coarse. Perhaps Zora would grow to a fleshy redness in that atmosphere of cattle after a while, when she had married some cavalier of the range with a big mustache under his snout. Bill sighed over the thought. He wished better fortune for Zora, but there did not appear to be any plan in his horoscope for helping her
