s trying to forget that a gallon of whisky stood in the
right-hand corner of his closet, behind a pair of half-worn riding-boots
that pinched his instep so that he seldom wore them, and that he had
only to take the jug out from behind the boots, pull the cork, and lift
the jug to his lips--

He caught himself leaning forward and staring at the closet door until
his eyes ached with the strain. He drew back and passed his hand over
his forehead; it ached, and he wanted to think about what he ought to do
with Dick. He did not like to discharge him without first consulting
Mrs. Kate, for he knew that Ches Mason was in the habit of talking
things over with her, and since Mason was gone, she had assumed an air
of latent authority. But Mrs. Kate had looked at him with such
reproachful eyes, that day at dinner, and her voice had sounded so
squeezed and unnatural, that he had felt too far removed from her for
any discussion whatever to take place between them.

Besides, he knew he could prove absolutely nothing against Dick, if Dick
were disposed toward flat denial. He might suspect--but the facts showed
Ford the aggressor, and Mose also. What if Mrs. Kate declined to believe
that Dick had put that jug of whisky in the kitchen, and had afterward
given it to Ford? Ford had no means of knowing just what tale Dick had
told her, but he did know that Mrs. Kate eyed him doubtfully, and that
her conversation was forced and her manner constrained.

And Josephine was worse. Josephine had not spoken to him all that day.
At breakfast she had not been present, and at dinner she had kept her
eyes upon her plate and had nothing to say to any one.

He wished Mason was home, so that he could leave. It wouldn't matter
then, he tried to believe, what he did. He even dwelt upon the desire of
Mason's return to the extent of calculating, with his eyes upon the
fancy calendar on the wall opposite, the exact time of his absence. Ten
days--there was no hope of release for another month, at least, and Ford
sighed unconsciously when he thought of it; for although a month is not
long, there was Josephine refusing to look at him, and there was
Dick--and there was the jug in the closet.

As to Josephine, there was no help for it; he could not avoid her
without making the avoidance plain to all observers, and Ford was proud.
As to Dick, he would not send him off without some proof that he had
broken an unwritten law of the Double Cross and brought whisky