the man
who knew Marie. He did not want Marie to hear what Joe might tell There
was no use, he told himself miserably, in making Marie despise him as
well as hate him. There was a difference. She might think him a brute,
and she might accuse him of failing to be a kind and loving husband; but
she could not, unless Joe told of his spree, say that she had ever heard
of his carousing around. That it would be his own fault if she did hear,
served only to embitter his mood.

He rolled over and glared at Cash, who had cooked his supper and was
sitting down to eat it alone. Cash was looking particularly misanthropic
as he bent his head to meet the upward journey of his coffee cup, and
his eyes, when they lifted involuntarily with Bud's sudden movement, had
still that hard look of bottled-up rancor that had impressed itself upon
Bud earlier in the day.

Neither man spoke, or made any sign of friendly recognition. Bud would
not have talked to any one in his present state of self-disgust, but for
all that Cash's silence rankled. A moment their eyes met and held; then
with shifted glances the souls of them drew apart--farther apart than
they had ever been, even when they quarreled over Pete, down in Arizona.

When Cash had finished and was filing his pipe, Bud got up and reheated
the coffee, and fried more bacon and potatoes, Cash having cooked just
enough for himself. Cash smoked and gave no heed, and Bud retorted by
eating in silence and in straightway washing his own cup, plate, knife,
and fork and wiping clean the side of the table where he always sat. He
did not look at Cash, but he felt morbidly that Cash was regarding him
with that hateful sneer hidden under his beard. He knew that it was
silly to keep that stony silence, but he kept telling himself that if
Cash wanted to talk, he had a tongue, and it was not tied. Besides,
Cash had registered pretty plainly his intentions and his wishes when he
excluded Bud from his supper.

It was a foolish quarrel, but it was that kind of foolish quarrel which
is very apt to harden into a lasting one.

CHAPTER TWELVE. MARIE TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE

Domestic wrecks may be a subject taboo in polite conversation, but Joe
De Barr was not excessively polite, and he had, moreover, a very likely
hope that Marie would yet choose to regard him with more favor than she
had shown in the past. He did not chance to see her at once, but as soon
as his work would permit he made it a point t