"That helps," whispered Belle. "You've changed, too--but not like the rest, thank God. And I thought maybe you had noticed things--" "I have noticed that the Devil's Tooth is mighty busy chasing dollars on the hoof," soothed Lance. "It has left our Belle alone too much, and it has gotten on her nerves. Go to bed, woman--and dream of pleasant things." He took her by the shoulders and pushed her playfully to the very door of her bedroom, gave her another kiss and turned the knob for her, and watched her go in with a smile on her face. His own smile lasted only until the door was closed. He went to the lamp, blew it out and entered his own room, removed his shoes and dropped them on the floor with more noise than was considerate of his father's slumber, lighted his lamp and moved aimlessly about the room for a time. He sat down on the edge of the bed while he smoked a cigarette, his elbows on his knees, his thoughts traveling far trails. Abruptly he rose, put on a pair of well-worn tennis shoes, opened a door leading outside and went quietly down to the corrals. The first corral he crossed and found it empty of any horses save the pintos and Coaley. The second corral held three horses, one of them the chunky roan he had ridden that afternoon. The third and largest corral was empty, the gate swinging open. "All right--no horses caught up for night-riding--_yet_," he said to himself, and returned to the house, leaving the straighter path to pass close to the bunk house. He listened there for a full two minutes, decided that it would take at least five men to do all of that snoring, and went to bed thankful for the comfort of a felt mattress under his tired body. The next day passed without any incidents save trivial ones that did not count. Lance rode to the creek with his trout-rod and reel--more citified innovations which the ranch eyed askance--and spent four hours loitering along the bank, his fly floating uselessly over shallow pools where was never a fish. It was not the right time of day for fishing, but Lance seemed to have forgotten the lore he had learned along that same creek and others farther away. Sometimes he could be seen from the ranch buildings, more often he could not. When he could not be seen was when he was crouched among the rocks, studying the Devil's Tooth Ridge with his powerful glasses. "Hope he's comfortable," he said once, when, satisfied that his guess was correct, he put the glasses away and settled down seriously to fishing. He rode home with four trout, and Riley fried them for supper. During supper Lance criticized Squaw Creek, and hinted that Mill Creek and Lava Creek were better fishing waters, and that he meant to try them. That night at eleven o'clock he made another silent tour of the corrals and went to bed feeling pretty sure that the ranch would show its present complement of men in the morning.