cub
like that for a son, I'd say the reason wasn't far to seek. Better keep
your eye peeled round that young man, Boyne."

"I will," I agreed, and he took his departure. I turned back into the
private room.

"Worth"--I put it quietly--"what say I go to Santa Ysobel with you? You
could bring me back Monday morning."

He agreed at once, silently, but thankfully I thought.

Barbara, listening, proposed half timidly to go with us, staying the
night at the Thornhill place, being brought back before work time
Monday, and was accepted simply. So it came that when we had a blow-out
as the crown of a dozen other petty disasters which had delayed our
progress toward Santa Ysobel, and found our spare tire flat, Barbara
jumped down beside Worth where he stood dragging out the pump, and
stopped him, suggesting that we save time by running the last few miles
on the rim and getting fixed up at Capehart's garage. He climbed in
without a word, and drove on toward where Santa Ysobel lies at the head
of its broad valley, surrounded by the apricot, peach and prune orchards
that are its wealth.

We came into the fringes of the town in the obscurity of approaching
night; a thick tulle fog had blown down on the north wind. The little
foot-hill city was all drowned in it; tree-tops, roofs, the gable ends
of houses, the illuminated dial of the town clock on the city hall,
sticking up from the blur like things seen in a dream. As we headed for
a garage with the name Capehart on it, we heard, soft, muffled, seven
strokes from the tower.

"Getting in late," Worth said absently. "Bill still keeps the old
place?"

"Yes. Just the same," Barbara said. "He married our Sarah, you know--was
that before you went away? Of course not," and added for my
enlightenment, "Sarah Gibbs was father's housekeeper for years. She
brought me up."

We drove into the big, dimly lighted building; there came to us from its
corner office what might have been described as a wide man, not
especially imposing in breadth, but with a sort of loose-jointed
effectiveness to his movements, and a pair of roving, yellowish-hazel
eyes in his broad, good-humored face, mighty observing I'd say, in spite
of the lazy roll of his glance.

"Been stepping on tacks, Mister?" he hailed, having looked at the tires
before he took stock of the human freight.

"Hello, Bill," Worth was singing out. "Give me another machine--or get
our spare filled and on--whichever's quickest. I want