ather or Transley just what had happened, but
she shrank from doing so as from the confession of a crime. Mostly she
was able to think of other matters.

Her father brought it up in a startling way at breakfast. Absolutely out
of a blue sky he said, "Did you know, Zen, that Drazk has disappeared?
Transley tells me you were int'rested a bit in him, or perhaps I should
say he was int'rested in you."

Zen was so overcome by this startling change in the conversation that
she was unable to answer. The color went from her face and she leaned
low over her plate to conceal her agitation.

"Yep," continued Y.D., with no more concern than if a steer had been
lost from the herd. "Transley said to tell you Drazk had disappeared an'
he reckoned you wouldn't be bothered any more with him."

"Drazk was nothing to me," she managed to say. "How can you think he
was?"

"Now who said he was?" her father retorted. "For a young woman with the
price of a herd of steers on her third finger you're sort o' short this
mornin'. Now I'm jus' wonderin' how far you can see through a board
fence, Zen. Are you surprised that Drazk has disappeared?"

She was entirely at a loss to understand the drift of her father's talk.
He could not connect her with Drazk's disappearance, or he would not
approach the matter with such unconcern. That was unthinkable. Neither
could Transley, or he would not have sent so brutal a message. And yet
it was clear that they thought she should be interested.

Her father's question demanded an answer.

"What should I care?" she ventured at length.

"I didn't ask you whether you cared. I asked you whether you was
surprised."

"Drazk's movements were--are nothing to me. I don't know that I have any
occasion to be surprised about anything he may do."

"Well, I'm rather glad you're not, because if you don't jump to
conclusions, perhaps other people won't. Not that it makes any
partic'lar diff'rence."

"Dad," she cried in desperation, "whatever do you mean?"

"It was all plain enough to me, an' plain enough to Transley," her
father continued with remarkable calmness. "We seen it right from the
first."

"You're talking in riddles, Y.D.," his wife remonstrated. "You're
getting Zen all worked up."

"Jewelry seems to be mighty upsettin'," Y.D. commented. "There was
nothin' like that in our engagement, eh, Jessie? Well, to come to the
point. There was a fire which burned up the valley of the South Y.D.
Fires don't st