right there he decided to study horticulture so that he
could raise plums and apples and hollyhocks and things.

CHAPTER XI

WAS IT THE DOG?

"That old dame down there thinks a lot of you, William." Ward had
closed the gate and was preparing to remount.

"Well, is there any reason why she shouldn't?" The tone of Billy
Louise was not far from petulant.

"Not a reason. What's molla, Bill?"

"Nothing that I know of." Billy Louise lifted her eyes to the rock
cabbages on the cliff above them and tried to speak convincingly.

"Yes, there is. Something's gone wrong. Can't you tell a pal,
Wilhemina?"

There was no resisting that tone. Billy Louise looked at him, and
though she still frowned, her eyes lightened a little.

"No, I can't tell a pal--or anybody else. I don't know. Something's
different, down there. I don't know what it is, and I don't like it."
She thought a minute and then smiled with that little twist of the lips
Ward liked so much. "Maybe it's the dog," she guessed. "I never see
his ugly mug that I don't feel like taking a shot at him. I like dogs,
too, as a general thing. He's got a wicked heart! I know he has.
He'd like nothing better than to take a chunk out of me."

"I'll go back and kill him; shall I, Bill Loo?"

"No. Some day maybe I'll get a chance at him myself. I've warned
Marthy, so--"

"Are you dead sure it's the dog?" Ward looked at her with that
keenness of glance which was hard to meet if one wanted to keep a
secret from him.

"Why?" Billy Louise's tone did not invite further questioning.

"Oh, nothing! I just wondered."

"You don't like Charlie; anybody can see that."

"Yes? Foxy's a real nice young man."

"But you don't like him. You never do like anybody--"

"No?" Ward's smile dared her to persist in the accusation. "In that
case I've no business to be fooling around here when there's work to be
done. That Cove down there has roused a heap of brand-new wants in me,
Wilhemina. Gotta have an orchard up on Mill Creek, lady-fair. Gotta
have a flower garden and things that climb all over the house and smell
nice. Gotta have four times as much meadow as I've got now, and a
house full of books and pictures and things, and more cattle and
horses, and a yellow canary in a yellow cage singing his head off out
on the porch. Gotta work like one son-of-a-gun, Wilhemina, to get all
those things and get 'em quick, so I can stand some show of--getting
wh