In Which the Demon Opens an Eye and Yawns A storm held the Double Cross wagons in a sheltered place in the hills, ten miles from the little town where Ford had spent a night on his way to the ranch a month before.

Mason, taking the inaction as an excuse, rode home to his family and left Ford to his own devices with no compunctions whatever.

He should, perhaps, have known better; but he was acting upon his belief that nothing so braces a man as the absolute confidence of his friends, and to have stayed in camp on Ford's account would, according to Mason's code, have been an affront to Ford's manifest determination to "make good." It is true that neither had mentioned the matter since the day of Ford's arrival at the ranch; men do not, as a rule, harp upon the deeper issues within their lives.

For that month, it had been as though the subject of intemperance concerned them as little as the political unrest of a hot-tempered people beyond the equator.

They had argued the matter to a more or less satisfactory conclusion, and had let it rest there.
Ford had ridden with him a part of the way, and when they came to a certain fork in the trail, he had sent a whimsically solemn message to Buddy, had pulled the collar of his coat closer together under his chin, and had faced the wind with a clean conscience, and with bowed head and hat pulled low over his brows.