ould assert with much
decision, though modesty forbade his telling the Little Doctor that he
was also sure she cared. She did care, if a girl's actions count for
anything, or her looks and smiles. Of course she cared! Else why did
she rush off home like that, a good month before she had intended to
go? They had planned that Andy would get a "lay-off" and go with her
as far as Butte, because she would have to wait there several hours,
and Andy wanted to take her out to the Columbia Gardens and see if she
didn't think they were almost as nice as anything California could
show. Then she had gone off without any warning because Jack Bates and
Irish had told her a lot of stuff about him, Andy; if that didn't
prove she cared, argued Andy to himself, what the dickens would you
want for proof?

It was from thinking these things over and over while he lay in bed,
that Andy formed the habit of looking often towards the west when his
hurt permitted him to hobble around the house. And when a man looks
often enough in any direction, his feet will, unless hindered by fate
itself, surely follow his gaze if you give them time enough.

It was the excursion rates advertised in a Great Falls paper that
first put the idea consciously into the brain of Andy. They seemed
very cheap, and the time-limit was generous, and--San Jose was not
very far from San Francisco, the place named in the advertisement; and
if he could only see the girl and explain--It would be another month
before he would be able to work, anyway, and--A man might as well get
rid of a hundred or so travelling, as to sit in a poker game and watch
it fade away, and he would really get more out of it. Anyhow, nobody
need know where he had gone. They could think he was just going to
Butte. And he didn't give a darn if they did find it out!

He limped back into the house and began inspecting, with much
dissatisfaction, his wardrobe. He would have to stake himself to new
clothes--but he needed clothes, anyway, that fall. He could get what
he wanted in Butte, while he waited for the train to Ogden. Now that
Andy had made up his mind to go, he was in a great hurry and grudged
the days, even the hours, that must pass before he could see Mary
Edith Johnson.

Not even the Little Doctor knew the truth, when Andy appeared next
morning dressed for his journey, ate a hasty and unsatisfactory
breakfast and took the Old Man to one side with elaborate carelessness
and asked for a sum tha