He was getting circles under his eyes, two new creases had appeared on each side of his whimsical lips, and a permanent line was forming between his eyebrows; but he had not opened the jug, and it had been in his possession thirty-six hours.  Thirty-six hours is not long, to be sure, when life runs smoothly with slight incidents to emphasize the figures on the dial, but it may seem long to the poor devil on the rack.

Just now Ford was trying to forget that a gallon of whisky stood in the right-hand corner of his closet, behind a pair of half-worn riding-boots that pinched his instep so that he seldom wore them, and that he had only to take the jug out from behind the boots, pull the cork, and lift the jug to his lips—­

He caught himself leaning forward and staring at the closet door until his eyes ached with the strain.  He drew back and passed his hand over his forehead; it ached, and he wanted to think about what he ought to do with Dick.  He did not like to discharge him without first consulting Mrs. Kate, for he knew that Ches Mason was in the habit of talking things over with her, and since Mason was gone, she had assumed an air of latent authority.  But Mrs. Kate had looked at him with such reproachful eyes, that day at dinner, and her voice had sounded so squeezed and unnatural, that he had felt too far removed from her for any discussion whatever to take place between them.

Besides, he knew he could prove absolutely nothing against Dick, if Dick were disposed toward flat denial.  He might suspect—­but the facts showed Ford the aggressor, and Mose also.  What if Mrs. Kate declined to believe that Dick had put that jug of whisky in the kitchen, and had afterward given it to Ford?  Ford had no means of knowing just what tale Dick had told her, but he did know that Mrs. Kate eyed him doubtfully, and that her conversation was forced and her manner constrained.

And Josephine was worse.  Josephine had not spoken to him all that day.  At breakfast she had not been present, and at dinner she had kept her eyes upon her plate and had nothing to say to any one.

He wished Mason was home, so that he could leave.  It wouldn’t matter then, he tried to believe, what he did.  He even dwelt upon the desire of Mason’s return to the extent of calculating, with his eyes upon the fancy calendar on the wall opposite, the exact time of his absence.  Ten days—­there was no hope of release for another month, at least, and Ford sighed unconsciously when he thought of it; for although a month is not long, there was Josephine refusing to look at him, and there was Dick—­and there was the jug in the closet.

As to Josephine, there was no help for it; he could not avoid her without making the avoidance plain to all observers, and Ford was proud.  As to Dick, he would not send him off without some proof that he had broken an unwritten law of the Double Cross and brought whisky to the ranch; and of that he had no proof.  As to his suspicions—­well, he considered that Dick had almost paid the penalty for having roused them, and the matter would have to rest where it was; for Ford was just.  As to the jug, he could empty it upon the ground and be done with that particular form of torture.  But he felt sure that Josephine was secretly “keeping cases” on the jug; and Ford was stubborn.