"Don't you fool yourself, Carson! She hasn't made one little misplay yet!" XVII "ONCE A FOOL--ALWAYS A FOOL" Though, under the surface, life upon Blue Lake ranch was sufficiently tense, the remaining days of June frivoled by as bright and bonny as the little meadow-blues flirting with the field-flowers. Since from the very first the ranch had been short-handed, the hours from dawn to dusk were filled with activity. Carson, who, true to Judith's expectations, had brought back some new ideas from his few days at the experimental farm--ideas not to be admitted by Carson, however--bought a hundred young steers from a neighboring overstocked range. In the lower corrals the new milking-machines were working smoothly, only a few of the older cows refusing to have anything to do with them. Tripp had succeeded in locating and getting back some of the men who had worked long under Luke Sanford and whom Trevors had discharged. It was a joy to see the familiar faces of Sunny Harper, Johnny Hodge, Bing Kelley, Tod Bruce. The alfalfa acreage was extended, a little more than doubled. Plans were made for an abundance of dry fodder to be fed with the lush silage during the coming lean months. Bud Lee broke his string of horses, and with Tommy Burkitt and one other dependable man began perfecting their education, with an eye turned toward a profitable sale in January. Quinnion, perforce, was left undisturbed upon the sheep-ranch whither Emmet Sawyer had followed him. Against Bud Lee's word that he had had a hand at the trouble at the old cabin were the combined oaths of two of the sheepmen that he had been with them at the time. Hampton's guests, who had planned for a month at the ranch, stayed on. But they would be leaving at the end of June. That is, Farris and Rogers positively; the Langworthys, perhaps. The major was content here, and to stay always and always, would be an unbounded joy--of course, with little runs to the city for the opera season and for shopping trips, and a great, jolly house-party now and then. The only fly in Marcia's ointment was Hampton himself. She confessed as much to Judith. She liked him, oh, ever so much! But was that love? She yearned for a man who would thrill her through and through, and Hampton didn't always do that. Just after his heroic capture of the terrible Shorty, Marcia was thrilled to her heart's content. But there were other days when Hampton was just Pollock Hampton. If it could only be arranged so that she could stay on and on, with no day of reckoning to come, no matrimonial ventures on the horizon . . . "That's simple, my dear," Judith smiled at her. "When you get through being Pollock Hampton's guest, you can be mine for a while."