e spied a fairly fresh Boise paper, and underneath that
lay the _Butte Miner_. That discovery settled the evening, so far as
he was concerned. If he and Billy Louise had been on the best of
terms, it is doubtful if she could have dragged his attention from
those papers.

Several times Billy Louise looked at him as though she meditated going
over and snatching them away from him, but she resisted the temptation
and continued to behave as a nice young woman should behave toward a
guest. She left him sitting inside by the lamp, which her mother had
lighted for his especial convenience, and went out and sat on the
doorstep and stared at the dusky line of hills and at the Big Dipper.
She was trying to think out the tangle of tiny, threadlike mysteries
that had enmeshed her thoughts and tightened her nerves until she could
not speak a decent word to anyone.

She felt that the lives of those around her were weaving
puzzle-patterns, and that she must guess the puzzles. And she felt as
though part of the patterns had been left out, so that there were
ragged points thrusting themselves upon her notice--points that did not
point to anything.

She sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped palms,
and scowled at the Big Dipper as if it held the answer away up there
beyond her reach. Where did Ward get the money to do all the things he
had done, this spring and summer? If he expected her to believe that
wolf story--!

What became of the cattle that had disappeared, by twos and threes and
sometimes more, in the last few months? Was there a gang of thieves
operating in the country, and where did they stay?

Why had Ward hinted that she did not like Charlie Fox, and why didn't
he himself like Charlie? Why had she felt that weight of depression
creep over her when they were leaving the Cove? Why? Why?

Billy Louise tried to bring her cold, common sense to the front. She
had found it a most effective remedy for most moods. Now it assured
her impatiently that every question--save one--had been born in her own
super-sensitive self. That one definite question was the first one she
had tried to answer. It kept asking itself, over and over, until in
desperation Billy Louise went to bed and tried to forget it in sleep.

Somewhere about midnight--she had heard the clock strike eleven a long
while ago--she scared her mother by sitting up suddenly in bed and
exclaiming relievedly: "Oh, I know; it's some new p