evocably lost. Mommie, leaning
close to his shoulder so that a wisp of her hair tickled his cheek while
she wrote, gave him a little cheer by her nearness and her unspoken
friendliness. She signed "Mary Amanda Selmer" very precisely, with
old-fashioned curls at the end of each word. Then, quite unexpectedly,
she slipped an arm around Johnny's neck and kissed him on his tanned
cheek where a four-day's growth of beard was no more than a brown fuzz
scarcely discernible to the naked eye. She gave his shoulder two little
affectionate pats that said plainly, "There, there, don't you worry one
bit," and went away without a word. Johnny gulped and winked hard, and
wished that Mary V was more like her mother, and hoped that Sudden was
not looking at him.

Sudden was folding the paper very carefully and slipping it into an
envelope, on the face of which he wrote "John Ivan Jewel, $3000. secured
note, due ----" whenever the date said. When he finally looked up at
John Ivan Jewel, that young man was rolling a cigarette with a fine
assumption of indifference, as though giving a three-thousand-dollar note
payable in one year and secured with all he owned in the world save his
clothes was a mere bagatelle; an unimportant detail of the day's business.

Sudden smoothed his face down with the palm of his hand, as he sometimes
did when Mary V demanded that she be taken seriously, and spoke calmly,
with neither pity, blame, nor approval in his voice.

"I have held you accountable for the horses stolen through your neglect
while you were in charge of Sinkhole range and therefore responsible for
their safety within a reasonable limit. The expenses of your sickness
after your fall with your flying machine, I will take care of myself.
You were at that time trying to find Mary V, which naturally I
appreciated. More than that, I make it a rule to pay the expenses of any
man hurt in my employ.

"The expense I have been under in hiring men, letting my own work go to
the devil, and so forth, while we thought you were lost, I shall not
expect you to pay. As I understand the matter, you had no intention of
coming to the ranch and had not said that you were coming. The expense
of looking for you really ought to come out of Mary V--and serve her
right for having so much faith in you. I am lucky in one sense--I shan't
have to pay the thousand-dollar reward the kid so generously offered in
my name for your recovery. The bonus she offered