"Perhaps that's why," she said with a smile. "Safety first means slowest most." "Just the same I'd back Callahan against Saunders on a speed-track," Dick championed. "Where are you bound?" she asked. "Oh, to show Colonel Stoddard my one-man and no-horse farm--you know, the automatically cultivated ten-acre stunt I've been frivoling with. A lot of changes have been made that have been waiting a week for me to see tried out. I've been too busy. And after that, I'm going to take him over the colony--what do you think?--five additions the last week." "I thought the membership was full," Paula said. "It was, and still is," Dick beamed. "But these are babies. And the least hopeful of the families had the rashness to have twins." "A lot of wiseacres are shaking their heads over that experiment of yours, and I make free to say that I am merely holding my judgment--you've got to show me by bookkeeping," Colonel Stoddard was saying, immensely pleased at the invitation to be shown over in person. Dick scarcely heard him, such was the rush of other thoughts. Paula had not mentioned whether Mrs. Wade and the little Wades were coming, much less mentioned that she had invited them. Yet this Dick tried to consider no lapse on her part, for often and often, like himself, she had guests whose arrival was the first he knew of their coming. It was, however, evident that Mrs. Wade was not coming that day, else Paula would not be running away thirty miles up the valley. That was it, and there was no blinking it. She was running away, and from him. She could not face being alone with him with the consequent perils of intimacy--and perilous, in such circumstances, could have but the significance he feared. And further, she was making the evening sure. She would not be back for dinner, or till long after dinner, it was a safe wager, unless she brought the whole Wickenberg crowd with her. She would be back late enough to expect him to be in bed. Well, he would not disappoint her, he decided grimly, as he replied to Colonel Stoddard: "The experiment works out splendidly on paper, with decently wide margins for human nature. And there I admit is the doubt and the danger--the human nature. But the only way to test it is to test it, which is what I am doing." "It won't be the first Dick has charged to profit and loss," Paula said. "But five thousand acres, all the working capital for two hundred and fifty farmers, and a cash salary of a thousand dollars each a year!" Colonel Stoddard protested. "A few such failures--if it fails--would put a heavy drain on the Harvest." "That's what the Harvest needs," Dick answered lightly. Colonel Stoddard looked blank. "Precisely," Dick confirmed. "Drainage, you know. The mines are flooded--the Mexican situation."