e
time--"

"I wish to goodness I had let you go with your dad. I shall not let you
eat with us, anyway, if you don't keep quiet. You're getting perfectly
impossible." Which even Buddy understood as a protest which was not to
be taken seriously.

Ford stayed long enough to finish drinking his tea, and then he left the
house with what he privately considered a perfectly casual manner. As a
matter of fact, he was extremely self-conscious about it, so that Mrs.
Kate felt justified in mentioning it, and in asking Josephine a question
or two--when she had prudently made an errand elsewhere for Buddy.

Josephine, having promptly disclaimed all knowledge or interest
pertaining to the affair, Mrs. Kate spoke her mind plainly.

"If Ford's going to fall in love with you, Phenie," she said, "I think
you're foolish to encourage Dick. I believe Ford is falling in love with
you. I never thought he even liked you till to-night, but what Buddy
said about that ribbon--"

"I don't suppose Bud knows what he's talking about--any more than you
do," snapped Josephine. "If you're determined that I shall have a love
affair on this ranch, I'm going home." She planted her chin in her two
palms, just as she had done at dinner, and stared into vacancy.

"Where?" asked Mrs. Kate pointedly, and then atoned for it
whole-heartedly. "There, I didn't mean that--only--this is your home.
It's got to be; I won't let it be anywhere else. And you needn't have
any love affair, Phene--you know that. Only you shan't hurt Ford. I
think he's perfectly splendid! What he did for Chester--I--I can't think
of that without getting a lump in my throat, Phene. Think of it! Going
without food himself, because there wasn't enough for two,
and--and--well, he just simply threw away his own chance of getting
through, to give Chester a better one. It was the bravest thing I ever
heard of! And the way he has conquered--?"

"How do you know he has conquered? Rumor says he hasn't. And lots of men
save other men's lives; it's being done every day, and no one hears much
about it. You think it was something extraordinary, just because it
happened to be Chester that was saved. Anybody will do all he can for a
sick partner, when they're away out in the wilds. I haven't a doubt Dick
would have done the very same thing, when it comes to that." Josephine
got up from the table then, and went haughtily into her own room.

Mrs. Kate retired quite as haughtily into the kitchen, and