“Well, I couldn’t help that.  I didn’t have any way of tying them, or anything, and—­”

“Brag, girl!  For Lord’s sake don’t apologize; it doesn’t come natural to you.  What gets me is that I was ripping the atmosphere wide open, trying to rescue you, and all the while you were making a whole sheriff’s posse of yourself—­and it was you that rescued me.  I should think—­”

“I did not!  I—­did Bill tell you the latest, Johnny?  You know how dad is—­about making people tell things he wants to know, and keeping them right to the point—­”

“I know.”  Johnny’s tone was eloquent.

“Well, he got at those Mexicans, and they told everything they knew—­and some besides.  And who do you think was the real leader of that gang, Johnny?  And I know now it was his voice that I couldn’t quite recognize over the ’phone.  They’ve arrested him and two or three of his men, and you wouldn’t believe a neighbor could be so tricky and mean as that Tucker Bly.  Stealing our horses to sell to the Mexicans, if you please, and selling his own to the government mostly—­but some to the Mexicans, too, I suppose.  And nobody suspecting a thing all the while, and Tex in with them and all.  And if you hadn’t stampeded the horses so they came back to the line, and the boys rounded them up, dad would have lost a lot more than he did.  But now the whole thing is out, and really, if I hadn’t caught those two greasers, there wouldn’t be any evidence against the Tucker Bly outfit, or Tex either.  And I just think it’s awful, the way—­”

She stopped abruptly.  Johnny’s bandaged head was leaning against the back of his big chair, and his eyes were closed.  His face looked whiter than it had a few minutes ago.  Mary V was scared.  She should have known better than to talk of those things.

“Shall—­would you like a drink, or—­or something?” she asked in a small, contrite voice.

Johnny opened his eyes and looked at her.

“No, I don’t want a drink; I just want somebody to give me another knock on the head that will finish me.”  And before Mary V could think of anything soothing to say, Johnny spoke again.  “I think I’ll go back and lie down awhile.  I—­don’t feel very good.”

He would not let Mary V help him at all, but walked slowly, steadying himself by the chairs, the wall, by anything solid within reach.  He did not look much like the very self-assured, healthy specimen of young manhood whom Mary V could bully and tease and talk to without constraint.  She felt as though she scarcely knew this thin, pale young man with the bandaged head and the somber eyes.  He seemed so aloof, as though his spirit walked alone in dark places where she could not follow.

After that she did not mention stolen horses, nor thieves, nor airplanes, nor anything that could possibly lead his thoughts to those taboo subjects.  Under that heavy handicap conversation lagged.  There seemed to be so little that she dared mention!  She would sit and prattle of school and shows and such things, and tell him about the girls she knew; and half the time she knew perfectly well that Johnny was not listening.  But she could not bear his moody silences, and he sat out on the porch a good deal of the time, so she had to go on talking, whether she bored him to death or not.