“I tell you, Monty, I’ve got a lot of respect for the way this Life picture is being directed. And it don’t stand to reason that a director who’s on to his job is going to let a character that was killed off in the first reel come slipping back into the film in the fourth reel. I know what _that_ would mean at Cohen’s. It would mean that some one in the cutting room would get the gate. No, sir, that’s bad technique--and the Big Director up there won’t stand for any cut-backs that don’t help the story along.” His eyes left Monty’s face to send another involuntary glance through the open door. “So all this hokum about ghosts is pure rot to me.” “Well, I ain’t superstitious none myself,” Monty repeated somewhat defensively. “I never seen anything--but one time I was here when Waddy thought _he_ seen something. He tried to point it out to me. But I couldn’t see nothin’. I reckon you’re right. And I’m shore glad yuh-all feel that way.” The spotted cat, having dined well upon a kangaroo rat caught down by the creek, was sitting near them calmly washing her face. She got up, looked up into the open doorway, and mewed a greeting. Then she trotted to meet--a memory, perhaps. She stopped three feet from the doorstep and stood there purring, her body arched with a rubbing movement. Monty Girard turned his head and stared at the cat over his shoulder. Three deep creases formed between Gary’s eyebrows while he also watched the pantomime. The cat turned, looked up ingratiatingly (still, perhaps, clinging to a memory) and trotted away toward the creek exactly as if she were following some one. Monty got up and the eyes of the two men met unsmilingly. “Oh, heck,” said Gary, shrugging his shoulders. “Come on and see the hay I’ve put up!” They walked in a constrained silence to the alfalfa field. Monty cast a critical eye over the raggedy edge of the cutting. He grinned slowly, tilting his head sidewise. “Whereabouts did yuh-all learn to swing a scythe?” he asked banteringly. “I reckon yuh could do it a heap better on a hawse.” “But the darned horse idea blew up on me. Did the balloon stunt. You get me, don’t you?” Gary’s laugh hinted at overstrained nerves. “I wish you’d been here then, Monty. Why, I didn’t dig any grave. I had to excavate a cellar to plant him in.” He waved a hand toward the haycocks. “How do you like the decorations? You will observe that they are somewhat larger than were being worn by meadows last year. These are the new 1921 models, specially designed with the stream-line effect, with a view to shedding rain. Also hail, snow and any other form of moisture. They are particularly good where horses are unavailable for hauling hay to a stack.” “I’ll run in the horses to-morrow,” Monty volunteered casually. “The two of us together ought to get that hay hauled in a day, all right. Spuds is lookin’ good. I reckon this ain’t your first attempt at farming.”