He would have let Smoky's reins have a bit more slack and would have led his little convoy to the corrals at a gallop, had not hope begun to tremble and shrink from meeting certainty face to face.

Had you asked him then, I think Bud would have owned himself a coward.

Until he had speech with home-folk he would merely be hoping that Marian was there; but until he had speech with them he need not hear that they knew nothing of her.

Bud--like, however, he tried to cover his trepidation with a joke.
"We'll sneak up on 'em," he said to Ed and Jerry when the roofs of house and stables came into view.
"Here's where I grew up, boys.

And in a minute or two more you'll see the greatest little mother on earth--and the finest dad," he added, swallowing the last of his Scotch stubbornness.
"And Sis, I hope," Eddie said wistfully.