He taught me a lot about chasing steers.  He was always after one the minute it left the cut, and he’d know just the second it was going to stop and turn; he’d never go a foot farther than the steer did, and he’d turn back just as quick.  I knew he knew I was green, but I thought the other men didn’t, so I just set quiet and played off like I was doing it all, when I wasn’t really doing a thing but holding on.  He was old, and they didn’t use him much except when they wanted a rope-horse around the corral.  And he’d made a lifelong study of steers.  He knew them from horns to tail, and by saying nothing and looking wise I thought I’d get the credit of being smart myself.  It’s kind of that way now.  I’m holding tight and looking wise about some business that I ain’t what you could call up in.”

He carried the saddle and bridle into the house, and she followed him.  They found Lorena annoyed by the indisposition of her husband.

“Dear me suz!  Here’s your pa bed-fast again.  He’s had a bad night and won’t open the door to let me tell him if he needs anything.  He says he won’t even take spoon victuals, and he won’t get up, and his chest don’t hurt him so that ain’t it, and I never was any hand to be nattering around a body, but he hadn’t ought to go without his food like he does, when the Father himself has a tabernacle of flesh like you or me—­though the Holy Ghost has not—­and it’s probably mountain fever again, so I’ll make some composition tea and he’s just got to take it.  Of course I never had no revelations from the Lord and never did I claim to have, but you don’t need the Holy Ghost coming upon you to tell you the plain doings of common sense.”

Whatever the nature of Mr. Follett’s business, his confidence in the soundness of his attitude toward it was perfect.  He showed no sign of abstraction or anxiety; no sign of aught but a desire to live agreeably in the present,—­a present that included Prudence.  When the early breakfast was over they went out about the place, through the peach-orchard and the vineyard still dewy, lingering in the shade of a plum-tree, finding all matters to be of interest.  For a time they watched and laughed at the two calves through the bars of the corral, cavorting feebly on stiffened legs while the bereaved mothers cast languishing glances at them from outside, conscious that their milk was being basely diverted from the rightful heirs.  They picked many blossoms and talked of many things.  There was no idle moment from early morning until high noon; and yet, though they were very busy, they achieved absolutely nothing.

In the afternoon Prudence donned her own sombrero, and they went to the canon to fish.  From a clump of the yellowish green willows that fringed the stream, Follett cut a slender wand.  To this he fixed a line and a tiny hook that he had carried in his hat, and for the rest of the distance to the canon’s mouth he collected such grasshoppers as lingered too long in his shadow.  Entering the canon, they followed up the stream, clambering over broken rocks, skirting huge boulders, and turning aside to go around a gorge that narrowed the torrent and flung it down in a little cascade.