d tried not to
betray the fact that this was what he had wanted, but had not hoped for.

"Sure, you can go," he said, with deceitful brevity. Josephine had not
spoken to him all the day before, except to say good-morning when he
came in to his breakfast. Ford made no attempt to understand her, any
more. He was carefully giving her the lead, as he would have explained
it, and was merely following suit until he got a chance to trump; but he
was beginning to have a discouraged feeling that the game was hers, and
that he might as well lay down his hand and be done with it. Which, when
he brought the simile back to practical affairs, meant that he was
thinking seriously of leaving the ranch and the country just as soon as
Mason returned.

He was thinking of trying the Argentine Republic for awhile, if he
could sell the land which he had rashly bought while he was getting rid
of his inheritance.

She did not offer any excuse for the request, as most women would have
done. Neither did she thank him, with lips or with eyes, for his ready
consent. She seemed distrait--preoccupied, as if she, also, were
considering some weighty question.

Ford pushed back his chair, watching her furtively. She rose with Kate,
and glanced toward the window.

"I suppose I shall need my heaviest sweater," she remarked practically,
and as if the whole affair were too commonplace for discussion. "It does
look threatening. How soon will you want to start?" This without looking
toward Ford at all.

"Right away, if that suits you." Ford was still watchful, as if he had
not quite given up hope of reading her meaning.

She told him she would be ready by the time he had saddled, and she
appeared in the stable door while he was cinching the saddle on the
horse he meant to ride.

"I hope you haven't given me Dude," she said unemotionally. "He's
supposed to be gentle--but he bucked me off that day I sprained my
ankle, and all the excuse he had was that a rabbit jumped out from a
bush almost under his nose. I've lost faith in him since. Oh--it's
Hooligan, is it? I'm glad of that; Hooligan's a dear--and he has the
easiest gallop of any horse on the ranch. Have you tried him yet, Ford?"

The heart of Ford lifted in his chest at her tone and her words, along
toward the last. He forgot the chill of her voice in the beginning, and
he dwelt greedily upon the fact that once more she had called him Ford.
But his joy died suddenly when he led his horse out an