No; stay with him, and we'll jog along to the quarry." He
chuckled. "Say, he actually gave just the least mite of a
groan that last time you fetched him. Did you hear it? And did
you see the way he dropped his feet to the road--just like he'd
struck a stone wall. And he's got savvee enough to know from now
on that that same stone wall will be always there ready for him
to lam into."
When he parted from her that afternoon, at the gate of the road
that led to Berkeley, he drew off to the edge of the intervening
clump of trees, where, unobserved, he watched her out of sight.
Then, turning to ride back into Oakland, a thought came to him
that made him grin ruefully as he muttered: "And now it's up to
me to make good and buy that blamed quarry. Nothing less than
that can give me an excuse for snooping around these hills."
But the quarry was doomed to pass out of his plans for a time,
for on the following Sunday he rode alone. No Dede on a chestnut
sorrel came across the back-road from Berkeley that day, nor the
day a week later. Daylight was beside himself with impatience
and apprehension, though in the office he contained himself. He
noted no change in her, and strove to let none show in himself.
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