It was the middle of the next forenoon when Manley came riding home, sullen from drink and a losing game of poker, which had kept him all night at the table, and at sunrise sent him forth in the mood which meets a grievance more than half-way. He did not stop at the house, though he saw Val through the open door; he did not trouble to speak to her, even, but rode on to the stable, stopping at the corral to look over the fence at the calves, still bawling sporadically between half-hearted nibblings at the hay which Polycarp had thrown in to them. Just at first he did not notice anything wrong, but soon a vague disquiet seized him, and he frowned thoughtfully at the little group. Something puzzled him; but his brain, fogged with whisky and loss of sleep, and the reaction from hours of concentration upon the game, could not quite grasp the thing that troubled him. In a moment, however, he gave an inarticulate bellow, wheeled about, and rode back to the house. He threw himself from the horse almost before it stopped, and rushed into the kitchen. Val, ironing one of her ruffled white aprons, looked up quickly, turned rather pale, and then stiffened perceptibly for the conflict that was coming. “There's only four calves in the corral--and I brought in five. Where's the other one?” He came up and stood quite close to her--so close that Val took a step backward. He did not speak loud, but there was something in his tone, in his look, that drove the little remaining color from her face. “Manley,” she said, with a catch of the breath, “why did you do that horrible thing? What devil possessed you? I--” “I asked you 'where is that other calf'? Where is it? There's only four. I brought in five.” His very calmness was terrifying. Val threw back her head, and her eyes were--as they frequently became in moments of stress--yellow, inscrutable, like the eyes of a lion in a cage. “Yes, you brought in five. One of the five, at least, you--stole. You put your brand, Manley Fleetwood, on a calf that did not belong to you; it belonged to the Wishbone, and you know it. I have learned many disagreeable things about you, Manley, in the past two years; yesterday morning I learned that you were a _thief_. Ah-h--I despise you! Stealing from the very men who helped you--the men to whom you owe nothing but gratitude and--and friendship! Have you no manhood whatever? Besides being weak and shiftless, are you a criminal as well? _How_ can you be so utterly lacking in--in common decency, even?” She eyed him as she would look at some strange monster in a museum about which she was rather curious. “I asked you where that other calf is--and you'd better tell me!” It was the tone which goes well with a knife thrust or a blow. But the contempt in Val's face did not change.