"Let me drive," came from Daisy, with a sharpness she could not keep out of her tone, "and give me the whip." Without waiting for compliance, she caught the reins from her companion; then pulled the whip out of his hand and dropped it into the holster. Mr. Coleman, his hands thus summarily freed, leaned back in pleased soliloquy, regarding Daisy's curves and color out of the corner of his eye. "Now you're cleared for lovin'," was the mental interpretation he put on Daisy's action, "so it'll all up to you--all up to you, boy." "This sure is the life--ain't it Sweetness," was the audible remark with which he moved closer on the seat. Daisy knew that the arm which crept along the back of the seat, behind her shoulders, was on its way to her waist; but, her nerves tingling, she let it creep. It was a fine, breezy, spring day. The road, along the uplands, was dry; but the recently-melted, winter snow had flooded the ravines, and where the trail descended into these, it was, more often than not, necessary to make a detour around the edge of a slough. Where the road-allowance was fenced on both sides, most farmer owners had obligingly opened panels of their fences to allow a loop aside where there was an unusually miry grade. But there were a few places where the barb-wire rampart remained inhospitably closed, with the farmer's house threateningly in view on an adjoining hillock, and surreptitious use of "pliers" out of the question. Here there was nothing for it but to drive through the mud, which sometimes, diluted to the consistency of paste, came as high as the hubs of the wheels. "Behave, you!" said Mr. Coleman, sternly. He was addressing his own hand, which, during Daisy's contemplation of the landscape, had moved down until it now lightly touched her waist. "I can't do nothin' with it, you see," he complained, a moment later, as the recalcitrant arm settled itself snugly about his companion; "just look at it now, Precious!" "I see it," Daisy responded, looking straight before her; "looks kind of becoming, doesn't it, Dexie?" "Mighty becomin', if you ask me," corroborated the arm's proprietor, warmly "I think it ought to stay right there, now I notice how it looks." Following this remark, Mr. Coleman stole a glance at the cheek that was turned his way. The glance intoxicated him. He tightened his grip, edged close, and dropped suddenly from jest to earnestness. "Say!" he breathed into her ear, "let's just keep on goin', little girl." "Where?" "Right on to town. Train comes in at six pee-ex. Little supper in the hotel here, an' then board her. What do we care?" "Aw, but, Dexie, what will people say?" "I don't give a whoop what they say--why should you mind? I can take a chance, if you can, Sweetheart. Come on: be a sport!" "Aw, Dexie!" "That's m'little girl. I knew you was game. Give us a sweet kiss now--come awn. Whass matter?" "The wind's pulling my hat loose," said Daisy, "I'll take it off."