That young man spent his time chuckling and crowing and kicking, until overcome with sleep. Two hours out from Stockchute he awoke and vociferously demanded nourishment. Promptly the party was brought to a halt. They were among the piñons on one of the hillsides. While the baby took his dinner, Isobel laid out the lunch and the men burned incense in the guise of a pair of Havana cigars produced by Blake.
The lunch might have been put up in the kitchen of a first-class metropolitan hotel. The fruit was the most luscious that money could buy; the sandwiches and cake would have tempted a sated epicure; the mineral water had come out of an ice chest so nearly frozen that it was still refreshingly cool. But--what was rather odd for a lunch packed in a private car--it included no wine or whiskey or liqueur. Blake caught Ashton's glance, and smiled.
"You see I'm still on the waterwagon," he remarked. "I've got a permanent seat. There have been times when it looked as if I might be jolted off, but--"
"But there's never been the slightest chance of that!" put in his wife. She looked at Isobel, her soft eyes shining with love and pride. "Once he gets a grip on anything, he never lets go."
"Oh, I can believe that!" exclaimed the girl with an enthusiasm that brought a shadow into the mobile face of Ashton.
"A man can't help holding on when he has something to hold on for," said Blake, gazing at his wife and baby.
"That's true!" agreed Ashton, his eyes on the dimpled face of Isobel.
Refreshed by the delicious meal, the party prepared to start on. But they did not travel as before. While Ashton was considerately washing out the dusty nostrils of the horses with water from his canteen, Isobel decided to drive with Mrs. Blake. Declaring that it would be like old times to sit a cowboy saddle, the big engineer lengthened the girl's stirrup leathers and swung on to the pony. This left Rocket to his owner.
At first Ashton seemed inclined to be stiff with his new road-mate. But as they jogged along, side by side, over the hills and across the sagebrush flats, Blake restricted his talk to impersonal topics and spared his companion from any allusion to their past difficulties. Throughout the ride, however, the two men maintained a certain reserve towards each other, and at no time approached the cordial intimacy that developed between the girl and Mrs. Blake before the end of their first mile together.