Josephine stared blankly at the brown slope before them.  Her lips were set firmly together, and her brows were contracted also, and her gloved fingers gripped the reins tightly.  She paid not the slightest attention to Ford’s hand upon her saddle horn, nor at the steady gaze of his eyes.  Later, when Ford observed the rigidity of her whole pose and sensed that mental withdrawing which needs no speech to push one off from the more intimate ground of companionship, he wondered a little.  Without in the least knowing why he felt rebuffed, he took away his hand, and swung his horse slightly away from her; his own back stiffened a little in response to the chilled atmosphere.

“Yes,” she said at last, “we’ll forget all about it, Mr. Campbell.”

“You called me Ford, a while ago,” he hinted.

“Did I?  One forms the habit of picking up a man’s given name, out here in the West, I find.  I’m sorry—­”

“I don’t want you to be sorry.  I want you to do it again.  All the time,” he added boldly.

He caught the gleam of her eyes under her heavy lashes, as she glanced at him sidelong.

“If you go looking at me out of the corner of your eyes,” he threatened recklessly, kicking his horse closer, “I’m liable to kiss you!”

And he did, before she could draw away.

“I’ve been kinda thinking maybe I’m in love with you, Josephine,” he murmured, holding her close.  “And now I’m dead sure of it.  And if you won’t love me back why—­there’ll be something doing, that’s all!”

“Yes?  And what would you do, please?” Her tone was icy, but he somehow felt that the ice was very, very thin, and that her heart beat warm beneath.  She drew herself free, and he let her go.

“I dunno,” he confessed whimsically.  “But Lordy me!  I’d sure do something!”

“Look for comfort in that jug, I suppose you mean?”

“No, I don’t mean that.”  He stopped and considered, his forehead creased as if he were half angry at the imputation.  “I’m pretty sure of where I stand, on that subject.  I’ve done a lot of thinking, since I hit the Double Cross—­and I’ve cut out whisky for good.

“I know what you thought, and what Mrs. Kate thinks yet; and I’ll admit it was mighty tough scratching for a couple of days after I got hold of that jug.  But I found out which was master—­and it wasn’t the booze!” He looked at her with eyes that shone.  “Josie, girl, I took a long chance—­but I put it up to myself this way, when the jug seemed to be on top.  I told myself it was whisky or you; not that exactly, either.  It’s hard to say just what I do mean.  Not you, maybe—­but what you stand for.  What I could get out of life, if I was straight and lived clean, and had a little woman like you.  It may not be you at all; that’s as you—­”