he
white fences and buildings of the Bloomfield Fair Grounds like a blob
of paint squeezed on a dark palette.

Mary Louise turned in the saddle and took a long thirsty look at the
western sky. "I love these days that are unplanned. They bring so much
more when there isn't any promise."

Joe took off his hat and wiped his forehead, keeping tight rein in the
meantime with his other hand on his roan saddler, who, scenting the
home stretch, was restless to be off. "After which original tribute to
my day, I hesitate to tell you that it has been a hunch of mine for
over a year--ever since that first spring in Texas. Made up my mind if
ever I struck God's country alive and in one piece, I'd treat myself
to a great bath of this sort of stuff. Unplanned! Humph!"

Mary Louise's tight little mouth relaxed but she did not shift her
gaze. "You forget. It was not planned--by me." On rare occasions Mary
Louise could slip from her matter-of-fact self into coquetry and back
again before one realized. It was like the play of a lightning
shuttle, so quick that one rarely caught the flash of the back stroke.
Joe had erred before. He was discreetly silent.

"I love it," Mary Louise went on, flinging back her head, "every
stick, every stone of it. That half mile of turf down Blue Bottle
Lane! I'd give ten years of my life to gallop the rest of it through
country like that." And then, as though startled, she bit her lip and
was still.

Joe smiled as he watched her narrowly. "A woman's a mess o'
contradictions. Whoa! You, too," he called sharply to his mare.
"Thought you wanted to eat grass a little. Whoa!" He reined up the
tossing head with difficulty. And then to Mary Louise, "You're a sort
of self-inflicted exile, aren't you?"

Mary Louise turned from her musing and gave him a look of most
effective scorn. "Put your hat on," she said coldly. "You talk better
through it." She was backing her mount out from the thicket whence he
had thrust his nose and was wheeling him about to point him toward
home. "I suppose you'd leave your job in Louisville and come back here
to live yourself--just because you loved the scenery!"

"Not such a bad swap at that." But she was off and away. One rearing
plunge and he was after her. Down across the grassy sweep of turf
they fled, across a shallow ditch, past a stretch of willow thicket,
around a jutting knob of rock, into an arching avenue of trees. It was
like dropping into a cool, shadowy bowl, the