Ford had casually remarked, in answer to a diffident question from Mrs. Kate, that he was going to ride out on Long Ridge and see if any stock was drifting back toward the ranch.  He hadn’t sent any one over that way for several days.  Ford, be it said, had announced his intention deliberately, moved by a vague, unreasoning impulse.

“Can I go?” teased Buddy, from sheer force of habit; no one ever mentioned going anywhere, but Buddy shot that question into the conversation.

“No, you can’t.  You can’t, with that cold,” his mother vetoed promptly, and Buddy, whimpering over his hot cakes, knew well the futility of argument, when Mrs. Kate used that tone of finality.

“Will you let me go?” Josephine asked unexpectedly, and looked straight at Ford.  But though her glance was direct, it was unreadable, and Ford mentally threw up his hands after one good look at her, and tried not to betray the fact that this was what he had wanted, but had not hoped for.

“Sure, you can go,” he said, with deceitful brevity.  Josephine had not spoken to him all the day before, except to say good-morning when he came in to his breakfast.  Ford made no attempt to understand her, any more.  He was carefully giving her the lead, as he would have explained it, and was merely following suit until he got a chance to trump; but he was beginning to have a discouraged feeling that the game was hers, and that he might as well lay down his hand and be done with it.  Which, when he brought the simile back to practical affairs, meant that he was thinking seriously of leaving the ranch and the country just as soon as Mason returned.

He was thinking of trying the Argentine Republic for awhile, if he could sell the land which he had rashly bought while he was getting rid of his inheritance.

She did not offer any excuse for the request, as most women would have done.  Neither did she thank him, with lips or with eyes, for his ready consent.  She seemed distrait—­preoccupied, as if she, also, were considering some weighty question.

Ford pushed back his chair, watching her furtively.  She rose with Kate, and glanced toward the window.

“I suppose I shall need my heaviest sweater,” she remarked practically, and as if the whole affair were too commonplace for discussion.  “It does look threatening.  How soon will you want to start?” This without looking toward Ford at all.

“Right away, if that suits you.”  Ford was still watchful, as if he had not quite given up hope of reading her meaning.

She told him she would be ready by the time he had saddled, and she appeared in the stable door while he was cinching the saddle on the horse he meant to ride.

“I hope you haven’t given me Dude,” she said unemotionally.  “He’s supposed to be gentle—­but he bucked me off that day I sprained my ankle, and all the excuse he had was that a rabbit jumped out from a bush almost under his nose.  I’ve lost faith in him since.  Oh—­it’s Hooligan, is it?  I’m glad of that; Hooligan’s a dear—­and he has the easiest gallop of any horse on the ranch.  Have you tried him yet, Ford?”