Yellowjacket had thereupon walked a few rods farther and stopped, patiently indifferent to the location of his oats box.

Lorraine had waited until his head began to droop lower and lower, and his switching at flies had become purely automatic.
Yellowjacket was going to sleep without making any effort to find the way home.

But since Lorraine had not told her father anything about it, his injunction could not have anything to do with the unreliability of the horse.
"Now," she said to the cat, "if three or four bandits would appear on the ridge, over there, and come tearing down into the immediate foreground, jump the gate and surround the house, I'd know this was the real thing.

They'd want to make me tell where dad kept his gold or whatever it was they wanted, and they'd have me tied to a chair--and then, cut to Lone Morgan (that's a perfectly _wonderful_ name for the lead!) hearing shots and coming on a dead run to the rescue." She picked up the cat and walked slowly down the hard-trodden path to the stable.

"But there aren't any bandits, and dad hasn't any gold or anything else worth stealing--Ket, if dad isn't a miser, he's _poor_! And Lone Morgan is merely ashamed of the way I talked to him, and afraid I'll queer myself with the neighbors.