des and up
into Barton's crimson face. "The weather? Oh!" she hastened anxiously
to affirm. "Oh, yes! The meteorological conditions certainly are
interesting this summer. Do you yourself think that it's a shifting of
the Gulf Stream? Or just a--just a change in the paths of the cyclonic
areas of low pressure?" she persisted drearily.

"Eh?" gasped Barton. "The weather? Heat was what I meant, Miss
Edgarton! Just plain heat!--DAMNED HEAT--was what I meant--if I may be
so explicit, Miss Edgarton."

"It is hot," conceded Eve apologetically.

"In fact," snapped Barton, "I think it's the hottest day I ever knew!"

"Really?" droned Eve Edgarton.

"Really!" snapped Barton.

It must have been almost half an hour before anybody spoke again.
Then, "Pretty hot, isn't it?" Barton began all over again.

"Yes," said Eve Edgarton.

"In fact," hissed Barton through clenched teeth, "in fact I know it's
the hottest day I ever knew!"

"Really?" droned Eve Edgarton.

"Really!" choked Barton.

Creakily under their hot, chafing saddles the sweltering roans lurched
off suddenly through a great snarl of bushes into a fern-shaded
spring-hole and stood ankle-deep in the boggy grass, guzzling noisily
at food and drink, with the chunky gray crowding greedily against
first one rider and then the other.

Quite against all intention Barton groaned aloud. His sun-scorched
eyes seemed fairly shriveling with the glare. His wilted linen collar
slopped like a stale poultice around his tortured neck. In his sticky
fingers the bridle-rein itched like so much poisoned ribbon.

Reaching up one small hand to drag the soft flannel collar of her
shirt a little farther down from her slim throat, Eve Edgarton rested
her chin on her knuckles for an instant and surveyed him plaintively.
"Aren't--we--having--an--awful time?" she whispered.

Even then if she had looked woman-y, girl-y, even remotely, affectedly
feminine, Barton would doubtless have floundered heroically through
some protesting lie. But to the frank, blunt, little-boyishness of her
he succumbed suddenly with a beatific grin of relief. "Yes, we
certainly are!" he acknowledged ruthlessly.

"And what good is it?" questioned the girl most unexpectedly.

"Not any good!" grunted Barton.

"To any one?" persisted the girl.

"Not to any one!" exploded Barton.

With an odd little gasp of joy the girl reached out dartingly and
touched Barton on his sleeve. Her face was suddenly eager, acti