he should have.

But Johnny would not quarrel. He made no reply whatever to the tentative
charge. When Mary V stopped scolding, she became aware that Johnny had
not heard a word of what she had said.

"How many horses did your dad figure had been stolen? I mean, besides the
ones he got back."

"Why--er--you'll have to ask dad. I don't see what that can have to do
with meadow larks' brains."

"It hasn't a thing to do with brains. I was merely wondering."

"Well," Mary V retorted flippantly, "I believe the wondering is very good
to-day. Help yourself, Johnny."

Johnny looked at her unsmilingly. "That," he told her bitterly, "is what
I'm trying to do."

He did not explain that somewhat cryptical remark, and presently he left
her and went to his room. Mary V felt that she was not being trusted by
a person who surely ought to know by this time that he needn't be so
secretive about his thoughts and intentions. If she had not proved her
loyalty and her friendship by this time, what did a person want her to
do, for gracious sake?

Mary V had rather an unhappy time of it, the next week or so. She had,
for some reason, lost all interest in collecting "Desert Glimpses"; so
much so that when her mother told her she must stay close to the ranch
lest she meet more of those terrible Mexican bandits, Mary V was very
sweet about it and did not argue with her mother at all. She seldom went
farther than the ledge, these days, and she could not keep her mind off
Johnny Jewel, even when there was no doubt at all that he was nearly
as well as ever.

Of course, it did not really matter--but why was Johnny so glum with her?
Why wouldn't he talk, or at least quarrel the way he used to do? He did
not seem angry about anything. He simply did not seem to care whether she
was with him or not. She might as well be a stick or a stone, she told
herself viciously, for all the attention Johnny Jewel ever paid to her.
She did not mind in the least; but it did seem perfectly silly and
unaccountable; she wondered merely because she hated mysteries.

It really should not have been mysterious. Mary V made the mistake of not
putting herself in Johnny's place and from that angle interpreting his
preoccupation. Had she done that she would have seen at once that Johnny
was fighting a battle within himself. All his ideas, his plans, and his
hopes had been turned bottom up, and Johnny was working over the wreck.

She sat and watched him from the ledge