"We-ell, now, yuh don't want to go too much on them chickydees," Applehead dissented. "Change uh wind'll set them flockin' and chirpin'. Ain't ary flake uh snow in the wind t'day, fur's I kin smell--and I calc'late I kin smell snow fur's the next one." "Oh, let's not talk about snow; that's getting to be a painful subject on this ranch," Rosemary pleaded, while she placed twelve pairs of steel knives and forks on the long, white-oilcloth-covered table. "'Painful subject' is right," Luck stated grimly, glancing up from the endless figuring and scribbling which seemed to occupy all his time indoors that was not actually given over to eating and sleeping. "If you don't begin to smell snow pretty quick, Applehead, I can see where _The Phantom Herd_ don't have any phantom herd." The corners of his mouth quirked upward, though his smile was becoming almost a stranger to his face. "We-ell, I dunno's you can blame me because it don't snow. I can't make it snow if it takes a notion not to snow--" "Oh, come and eat, and never mind the snow," called Rosemary impatiently. "We've got to mind the snow--or we don't eat much longer!" Luck laid aside his papers with the tired gesture which betrays heavy anxiety. "The whole punch of the picture depends on that blizzard and what it leads up to. It's getting close to March,--this is the twentieth of February,--and the Texas Cattleman's Convention meets the first of April. I've got to have the picture done by then, so as to show it and get their endorsement as a body, in order to boost the sales up where they belong." "Mamma!" Weary looked up at him, open-eyed. "How long have you had that notion in your head,--showing the picture to the Cattlemen's Convention? I never heard of it." "I might say quite a few things you haven't heard me say before," Luck retorted, so harassed that he never knew how sharp a snub he had given. "I've had that in mind from the start; ever since I read when and where the convention would meet this spring. We've got to have that blizzard, and we've got to have it before many more days." "Oh, well, we'll have it," Rosemary soothed, as she would have comforted a child. "I just know March will come in like a roaring lion! Have some beans. They're different, to-night. I cooked them with plain salt pork instead of bacon. You can't imagine what a difference it makes!" Luck was on the point of snapping out something that would have hurt her feelings. He did not want baby-soothing. It did not comfort him in the least to have her assure him that it would snow, when he knew she had absolutely no foundation for such an assurance. But just before he spoke, he remembered how bravely she had been smiling at hardships that would have broken the spirit of most women, so he took the beans and smiled at her, and did not speak at all.