"Not that I booze often," the mason explained with pride. "I reckon not to make a hog of myself, but when you've been off on a job for months, working all day long six days in the week in the heat and dust, you accumulate a thirst and a devilment in you that needs letting out." He grinned at Adelle as if he felt that she might be sympathetic with his simple point of view and added,-- "I guess that's what made me sassy to you this morning!" It was his sole apology. They both laughed, accepting it as such, and Adelle, to shift the topic, remarked,-- "You've got a nice place up here for your house." The mason wrinkled his lips against the suggestion of sentiment. "The shack's all right--kind of fur to tote supplies over the hill. But I can't stand those dagoes and their dirty ways. They have too many boarders where they live." His American ancestry betrayed itself thus in his selection of an exclusive position for his bunk. The conversation seemed to have come to a natural conclusion, but Adelle did not start. At last she said what she had had in mind for some time,-- "You'd better stay here--come back to work Monday." "I don't know as I want to," the mason replied, with a touch of his former truculency. "I can get all the work I want most anywheres." "I'll speak to Mr. Ferguson about it," Adelle said. "Good-night!" She could not do more, she thought, as she hurried along the path, although she was unreasonably anxious not to have the young stone mason leave, more anxious than she had been that morning to have him discharged for his insolence to her. When she was about to enter the wood, she turned and looked back at the shack. She hoped that he was not going to start on a spree. The mason, who had been sitting on the step where she had left him, rose as if he had come to a sudden resolution and marched into the shack. Adelle felt sure that he had made up his mind to go to San Francisco and get his "booze." She divined the craving in him for excitement, some relief from his toilsome hours under the hot sun. Possibly he had fought against this desire all the summer, restrained from breaking loose by a prudence which she had defeated by arbitrarily discharging him from his job and could not so easily restore with her change of whim. She did not feel any personal blame for his action, however, nor did she blame him for yielding to this gross temptation, as her more conservative neighbors might, although they sometimes yielded themselves both to drink and the stock market to stimulate their nerves. She merely hoped that he would think better of his purpose. For the man interested her, and before she dressed for dinner she sent a servant to the village with a note for the contractor, asking him to reengage the discharged stone mason and be sure that he came back to work on the Monday. XXXVI