Dinky-Dunk rode over to-day when Peter was bolting some new wire stuts on the windmill tower and I was busy dry-picking two polygamous old roosters which Whinnie had beheaded for me. My husband attempted an offhand and happy-go-lucky air which, I very soon saw, was merely a mask to hide his embarrassment. He even flushed up to the ears when little Dinkie drew back for a moment or two, as any child might who didn’t recognize his own father, though he later solicitously tiptoed to the sleeping-porch where the Twins were having their nap, and remarked that they were growing prodigiously.

It was all rather absurd. But when one member of this life-partnership business is stiff with constraint, you can’t expect the other member to fall on his neck and weep. And Dinky-Dunk, for all his nonchalance, looked worried and hollow-eyed. He was in the saddle again, and headed back for Casa Grande, when he caught sight of Peter at work on the windmill. So he loped over to my hired man and had a talk with him. What they talked about I couldn’t tell, of course, but it seemed a casual and friendly enough conversation. Peter, in his blue-jeans, dirt-marked and oil-stained, and with a wrench in his hand, looked like an I. W. W. agitator who’d fallen on evil days.

I felt tempted to sally forth and reprove Dinky-Dunk for wasting the time of my hired help. But that, I remembered in time, might be treading on rather thin ice, or, what would be even worse, might seem like snooping. And speaking of snooping, reminds me that a few nights ago I listened carefully at the open window of the bunk-house where Whinstane Sandy was deep in repose. Not a sound, not a trace of a snore, arose from Whinnie’s cot.

So my suspicions were confirmed. That old sourdough had deliberately lain awake and tried to trumpet my second man from the precincts which Whinnie felt he’d already preempted. He had attempted to snore poor Peter off the map and away from Alabama Ranch!