'round som'er's."

The girl lifted the skillet from the stove, and let the flame flare up
to hide her blushes.

"He wouldn't be settin' 'round," she asserted indignantly, jabbing the
fire with her fork. "He'd be up an' comin', you c'n bet on that."

"What's Idy gettin' off now?" drawled Mrs. Starkweather from the other
room.

"Gettin' off her base," answered Parker jocosely. Nevertheless, the wit
of his inamorata rankled, and after dinner he went with Eben to the barn
to "hitch up."

"Idy wants to go over to Elsmore this afternoon," said Eben, "an' I
promised to go 'long; but I'd ought to stay with the grubbin'. If you
was calc'latin' to lay off anyhow, mebbe you wouldn't mind the ride. The
broncos hain't been used much sence I commenced on the greasewood, and
I don't quite like to have 'er go alone."

"She hadn't ought to go alone," broke in Parker eagerly. "That pinto o'
yourn's goin' to kick some o' ye into the middle o' next week, one o'
these days. I was just thinkin' I'd foot it over to the store fer some
bacon. Tell Idy to wait till I run up to the house an' get my gun."

Idy waited, rather impatiently, and rejected with contempt her escort's
proposal to take the lines.

"When I'm scared o' this team, I'll let ye know," she informed him,
giving the pinto a cut with the whip that sent his heels into the air.
"If ye don't like my drivin', ye c'n invite yerself to ride with
somebody else. I'm a-doin' this."

The afternoon was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring.
Every crease and wrinkle in the velvet of the encircling hills was
reflected in the blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed
like bonfires on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the
blossoming buckthorn tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in
the wild buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the
mustard, and now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark
broke into the drowsy quiet--a swift little dagger of sound.

"The barley's headin' out fast." Parker raised his voice above the
rattle of the wagon. "I wished now I'd 'a' put in that piece of
Harrington's."

"Harvest's a poor time fer wishin'; it's more prof'table 'long about
seedin'-time," said Idy, with a smile that threatened the meshes of her
stylishly drawn veil.

Parker set one foot on the dashboard, and swung the other out of the
wagon nervously.

"I do a good deal o' wishin' now that ain't very prof'table--t