there was a
distinct coolness between them for the rest of the day, and a part of
the next. The chill of it affected Ford sufficiently to keep him away
from the house as much as possible, and unusually silent and unlike
himself when he was with the men.

But, unlike many another, he did not know that his recurrent
dissatisfaction with life was directly traceable to the apparent
intimacy between Josephine and Dick. Ford, if he had tried to put his
gloomy unrest into words, would have transposed his trouble and would
have mistaken effect for cause. In other words, he would have ignored
Josephine and Dick entirely, and would have said that he wanted
whisky--and wanted it as the damned are said to want water.

CHAPTER XII

At Hand-Grips with the Demon

Mose was mad. He was flinging tinware about the kitchen with a fine
disregard of the din or the dents, and whenever the blue cat ventured
out from under the stove, he kicked at it viciously. He was mad at Ford;
and when a man gets mad at his foreman--without knowing that the foreman
has been instructed to bear with his faults and keep him on the pay-roll
at any price--he must, if he be the cook, have recourse to kicking cats
and banging dishes about, since he dare not kick the foreman. For in
late November "jobs" are not at all plentiful in the range land, and
even an angry cook must keep his job or face the world-old economic
problem of food, clothing, and shelter.

But if he dared not speak his mind plainly to Ford, he was not averse to
pouring his woes into the first sympathetic ear that came his way. It
happened that upon this occasion the ear arrived speedily upon the head
of Dick Thomas.

"Matter, Mose?" he queried, sidestepping the cat, which gave a long leap
straight for the door, when it opened. "Cat been licking the butter
again?"

Mose grunted and slammed three pie tins into a cupboard with such force
that two of them bounced out and rolled across the floor. One came
within reach of his foot, and he kicked it into the wood-box, and swore
at it while it was on the way. "And I wisht it was Ford Campbell
himself, the snoopin', stingy, kitchen-grannying, booze-fightin',
son-of-a-sour-dough bannock!" he finished prayerfully.

"He surely hasn't tried to mix in here, and meddle with you?" Dick
asked, helping himself to a piece of pie. You know the tone; it had just
that inflection of surprised sympathy which makes you tell your troubles
without that res