“There, now, we don’t want to get all excited, Mary V. Sit down here and stop for-gracious-saking, and tell dad and Bill what it is you’ve seen.  If it’s anything that’ll help run down them horse thieves, you’ll get that Norman car, kitten, if I have to pawn my watch.”  Sudden gave Bill a lightened look of hope, and pulled Mary V down beside him on the striped porch swing.  Then he snorted at something he saw.  “What’s the riding breeches and boots for?  Didn’t I tell you—­”

“Well, Bill’s going to lend me Jake, and I’ll be in a hurry.”

“Like h—­” Bill began explosively, and stopped himself in time.

“Just like that,” Mary V told him calmly.  “Dad, if Bill doesn’t let me ride Jake, I don’t believe I can remember some things I saw down on Sinkhole range—­through the field glasses, from Snake Ridge.  I shall feel so badly I’ll just have to go into my room, and lock the door and cry—­all—­day—­long!” To prove it, Mary V’s lips began to quiver and droop at the corners.  To prepare for the deluge, Mary V got out her handkerchief.

Bill looked unhappy.  “That horse ain’t safe for yuh to ride,” he temporized.  “He’s liable to run away and kill yuh.  He—­”

“I’ve ridden him twice, and he didn’t,” Mary V stopped quivering her lips long enough to retort.  “I don’t see why people want to be so mean to me, when I am trying my best to help about those horse thieves, and when I know things no other person on this ranch suspects, and if they did, they would simply be stunned at knowing there is a thief on their own pay roll.  And when I just want Jake so I can hel-lp—­and Tango is getting so lazy I simply can’t get anywhere with him in a month—­” Mary V did it.  She actually was crying real tears, that slipped down her cheeks and made little dark spots on her blue kimono.

Bill Hayden looked at Sudden with harassed eyes.  Sudden looked at Bill, and smoothed Mary V’s hair—­figuratively speaking; in reality he drew his fingers over a silk-and-lace cap.

“H—­well, it’s up to your dad.  You can ride Jake if he’s willin’ to take the chance of you getting your neck broke.  I shore won’t be responsible.”  Bill looked more unhappy than ever, not at all as though he gloried in his martyrdom to the Rolling R.

“Why, Jake’s as gentle as a ki-kitten!” Mary V sobbed.

“Like hell he’s gentle!” muttered Bill, so far under his breath that he did not feel called upon to apologize.

“Well, now, we’ll talk about Jake later on.  Tell dad and Bill what it was you saw, and what you mean by a thief on the pay roll.  I don’t promise I’ll be simply stunned with surprise; that story young Jewel told last night does seem to have some awful weak points in it—­”

“Why dad Selmer!  You know perfectly well that Johnny Jewel is the soul of honor!  Why you owe an apology to Johnny for ever thinking such a thing about him!  Why, for gracious sake, must everybody on this ranch be so blind and stupid?” Mary V asked the glorious sunrise that question, and straightway hid her face behind her handkerchief.