g and an alcoholic, he had run
away from the doctors and the chicken-coop of a city, and soaked up
health like a thirsty sponge. Well, Daylight pondered, if a sick man
whom the doctors had given up could develop into a healthy farm
laborer, what couldn't a merely stout man like himself do under similar
circumstances? He caught a vision of his body with all its youthful
excellence returned, and thought of Dede, and sat down suddenly on the
bed, startled by the greatness of the idea that had come to him.

He did not sit long. His mind, working in its customary way, like a
steel trap, canvassed the idea in all its bearings. It was big--bigger
than anything he had faced before. And he faced it squarely, picked it
up in his two hands and turned it over and around and looked at it.
The simplicity of it delighted him. He chuckled over it, reached his
decision, and began to dress. Midway in the dressing he stopped in
order to use the telephone.

Dede was the first he called up.

"Don't come to the office this morning," he said. "I'm coming out to
see you for a moment." He called up others. He ordered his motor-car.
To Jones he gave instructions for the forwarding of Bob and Wolf to
Glen Ellen. Hegan he surprised by asking him to look up the deed of
the Glen Ellen ranch and make out a new one in Dede Mason's name.
"Who?" Hegan demanded. "Dede Mason," Daylight replied imperturbably
the 'phone must be indistinct this morning. "D-e-d-e M-a-s o-n. Got
it?"

Half an hour later he was flying out to Berkeley. And for the first
time the big red car halted directly before the house. Dede offered to
receive him in the parlor, but he shook his head and nodded toward her
rooms.

"In there," he said. "No other place would suit."

As the door closed, his arms went out and around her. Then he stood
with his hands on her shoulders and looking down into her face.

"Dede, if I tell you, flat and straight, that I'm going up to live on
that ranch at Glen Ellen, that I ain't taking a cent with me, that I'm
going to scratch for every bite I eat, and that I ain't going to play
ary a card at the business game again, will you come along with me?"

She gave a glad little cry, and he nestled her in closely. But the
next moment she had thrust herself out from him to the old position at
arm's length.

"I--I don't understand," she said breathlessly.

"And you ain't answered my proposition, though I guess no answer is
necessary.