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"You are," Ward affir like the et-rich trail Say, Bill, I don't believe it's the dog!" He looked at her with the s just behind his lips and his eyes And behind the sh to see it, was a troubled anxiety He shifted the pail of currants to the other ar's bothering you Can't you tell a fellohat it is?"

"No, I can't" Billy Louise spoke crossly "I've got a headache I've been riding ever since this oodness you'd let ; I'et-rich-quick scheether with a click, jerked Blue angrily into the trail when he had ed to make him as conscious of her mood as was Ward

Ward eyed her unobtrusively with his face set straight ahead He glanced down at the pail of currants, which was heavy, and at the trail, which was long and lonely He twisted his lips in brief sarcasm--for he had a temper of his own--and rode on with his neck set very stiff and his eyes a trifle harder than they had ever been before when Billy Louise rode alongside He did not turn off at the ford--and Billy Louise betrayed by a quick glance at him that she had half expected him to desert her there--but crossed it beside her and rode on up the hill

He had ain until she wiped out, by apology or a change of manner, that last offensive re with her to carry the currants, and he hoped she realized also that, if she had been any other person who had spoken to hiround and ridden off and left her to her own devices

He did not once speak to Billy Louise on the way to the Wolverine; but his silence changed gradually from stubbornness to pure abstraction, as they rode leisurely along the dusty trail with the sunset glowing before theot the actual presence of Billy Louise, and he did actually forget herjust how and where he should plant his orchard, and he wasa porch wide enough to hang a haing in that haloried in his possession of her companionship