Explore "Out of the Blue" by Bertrand W. Sinclair on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some minutes later he heard her stirring in the house. The sun grows hot early on the plains in midsummer. Rock had planted himself on the porch steps, in the shade, debating his next move. Should he ride on about his business? Logically, yes. He had a definite task to perform. It was time he set about it. He was on the ground. This was only an incident, a happening by the way. Yet his mind was full of this woman and child, alone on a ranch in the wilderness. The girl had said there were no other men. But this ranch and equipment spelled men and stock. It was more than the cabin of a settler striving for a foothold and security in a virgin land. A woman with a three-year-old baby had no business alone on a ranch in this waste, without a man in the background.
That problem -- which was more a state of feeling than a problem, Rock knew -- was solved for him in unexpected fashion. He rose at last and entered the house, specifically to ask her if there was anything else he could do before he departed.