"With all my heart," exclaimed Aldous, his blood tingling at the thought of being near Joanne. "I've got some business with MacDonald and as soon as that's over I'll domicile myself here. It's bully of you, Blackton! You know----"
"Why, dammit, of course I know!" chuckled Blackton, lighting his pipe. "Can't I see, Aldous? D'ye think I'm blind? I was just as gone over Peggy before I married her. Fact is, I haven't got over it yet--and never will. I come up from the work four times a day regular to see her, and if I don't come I have to send up word I'm safe. Peggy saw it first. She said it was a shame to put you off in that cabin with Miss Gray away up here. I don't want to stick my nose in your business, old man, but--by George!--I congratulate you! I've only seen one lovelier woman in my life, and that's Peggy."
He thrust out a hand and pumped his friend's limp arm, and Aldous felt himself growing suddenly warm under the other's chuckling gaze.
"For goodness sake don't say anything, or act anything, old man," he pleaded. "I'm--just--hoping."
Blackton nodded with prodigious understanding in his eyes.
"Come along when you get through with MacDonald," he said. "I'm going in and clean up for to-night's fireworks."
A question was in Aldous' mind, but he did not put it in words. He wanted to know about Quade and Culver Rann.
"Blackton is such a ridiculously forgetful fellow at times that I don't want to rouse his alarm," he said to MacDonald as they were riding toward the corral a few minutes later. "He might let something out to Joanne and his wife, and I've got reasons--mighty good reasons, Mac--for keeping this affair as quiet as possible. We'll have to discover what Rann and Quade are doing ourselves."
MacDonald edged his horse in nearer to Aldous.
"See here, Johnny, boy--tell me what's in your mind?"
Aldous looked into the grizzled face, and there was something in the glow of the old mountaineer's eyes that made him think of a father.
"Yes, I guess I do, Johnny," he said in a low voice. "You think of Mis' Joanne as I used to--to--think of _her_. I guess I know. But--what you goin' to do?"
Aldous shook his head, and for the first time that afternoon a look of uneasiness and gloom overspread his face.