Josephine had not spoken to him all that day.
At breakfast she had not been present, and at dinner she had kept her eyes upon her plate and had nothing to say to any one.
He wished Mason was home, so that he could leave.

It wouldn't matter then, he tried to believe, what he did.

He even dwelt upon the desire of Mason's return to the extent of calculating, with his eyes upon the fancy calendar on the wall opposite, the exact time of his absence.

Ten days--there was no hope of release for another month, at least, and Ford sighed unconsciously when he thought of it; for although a month is not long, there was Josephine refusing to look at him, and there was Dick--and there was the jug in the closet.
As to Josephine, there was no help for it; he could not avoid her without making the avoidance plain to all observers, and Ford was proud.
As to Dick, he would not send him off without some proof that he had broken an unwritten law of the Double Cross and brought whisky to the ranch; and of that he had no proof.

As to his suspicions--well, he considered that Dick had almost paid the penalty for having roused them, and the matter would have to rest where it was; for Ford was just.