Mr. Royce went over to old man Dawson’s car and said rather childishly, “It can’t be that Claude’s grown taller?  I suppose it’s the way they learn to carry themselves.  He always was a manly looking boy.”

“I expect his mother’s a proud woman,” said Susie, very much excited.  “It’s too bad Enid can’t be here to see him.  She would never have gone away if she’d known all that was to happen.”

Susie did not mean this as a thrust, but it took effect.  Mr. Royce turned away and lit a cigar with some difficulty.  His hands had grown very unsteady this last year, though he insisted that his general health was as good as ever.  As he grew older, he was more depressed by the conviction that his women-folk had added little to the warmth and comfort of the world.  Women ought to do that, whatever else they did.  He felt apologetic toward the Wheelers and toward his old friends.  It seemed as if his daughters had no heart.

XI Camp habits persisted.  On his first morning at home Claude came downstairs before even Mahailey was stirring, and went out to have a look at the stock.  The red sun came up just as he was going down the hill toward the cattle corral, and he had the pleasant feeling of being at home, on his father’s land.  Why was it so gratifying to be able to say “our hill,” and “our creek down yonder”? to feel the crunch of this particular dried mud under his boots?

When he went into the barn to see the horses, the first creatures to meet his eye were the two big mules that had run away with him, standing in the stalls next the door.  It flashed upon Claude that these muscular quadrupeds were the actual authors of his fate.  If they had not bolted with him and thrown him into the wire fence that morning, Enid would not have felt sorry for him and come to see him every day, and his life might have turned out differently.  Perhaps if older people were a little more honest, and a boy were not taught to idealize in women the very qualities which can make him utterly unhappy—­But there, he had got away from those regrets.  But wasn’t it just like him to be dragged into matrimony by a pair of mules!

He laughed as he looked at them.  “You old devils, you’re strong enough to play such tricks on green fellows for years to come.  You’re chock full of meanness!”

One of the animals wagged an ear and cleared his throat threateningly.  Mules are capable of strong affections, but they hate snobs, are the enemies of caste, and this pair had always seemed to detect in Claude what his father used to call his “false pride.”  When he was a young lad they had been a source of humiliation to him, braying and balking in public places, trying to show off at the lumber yard or in front of the post office.

At the end manger Claude found old Molly, the grey mare with the stiff leg, who had grown a second hoof on her off forefoot, an achievement not many horses could boast of.  He was sure she recognized him; she nosed his hand and arm and turned back her upper lip, showing her worn, yellow teeth.