at all; moved the jug into the exact place where it had stood
before, and went out of the room on her toes.

So did Ford, for that matter, and he was in a cold terror lest she
should look out and see him walking down the path where he should
logically have walked more than five minutes before. He did not dare to
turn and look--until he was outside the gate; then inspiration came to
aid him and he went back boldly, stepped upon the porch with no effort
at silence, opened his door, and went in as one who has a right there.

He heard the click of dishes which told that she was clearing the table,
and he breathed freer. He walked across the room, waited a space, and
walked back again, and then went out with his heart in its proper
position in his chest; Ford was unused to feeling his heart rise to his
palate, and the sensation was more novel than agreeable. When he went
again down the path, there was a certain exhilaration in his step. His
thoughts arranged themselves in clear-cut sentences, as if he were
speaking, instead of those vague, almost wordless impressions which fill
the brain ordinarily.

"She's keeping cases on that jug. She must care, or she wouldn't do
that. She's worried a whole lot; I could see that, all along. Down at
the bunk-house she called me Ford twice--and she said it meant a lot to
her, whether I make good or not. I wonder--Lordy me! A man could make
good, all right, and do it easy, if she cared! She doesn't know what to
think--that jug staying right up to high-water mark, like that!" He
laughed then, silently, and dwelt upon the picture she had made while
she had stood there before the table.

"Lord! she'd want to kill me if she knew I hid in that closet, but I
just had a hunch--that is, if she cared anything about it. I wonder if
she did really say she wished I'd killed Dick?

"Anyway, I can fight it now, with her keeping cases on the quiet. I
know I can fight it. Lordy me, I've got to fight it! I've got to make
good; that's all there is about it. Wonder what she'll think when she
sees that jug don't go down any? Wonder--oh, hell! She'd never care
anything about me. If she did--" His thoughts went hazy with vague
speculation, then clarified suddenly into one hard fact, like a rock
thrusting up through the lazy sweep of a windless tide. "If she did
care, I couldn't do anything. I'm married!"

His step lost a little of its spring, then, and he went into the
bunk-house with much the same express