But at the hand-gripping moment there was no time for a nice weighing of
emotions. He was in his father's house; the home-coming, some phases of
which he had vaguely dreaded, was a fact accomplished, and the new
life--the life which must be lived without Patricia--was fairly begun.
Also, there were many arrears to be brought up.
"Intuition, on the manward side of it at least, doesn't go," he was
saying with half-boyish candor. "I was awake last night when you drove
home in the motor, and I looked out of the window and saw you as you
came up the steps. According to the psychics, there ought to have been
some inward stirrings of recognition, but there weren't--not a single
thrill. Did the little--er--did Mrs. Blount tell you that I was here?"
"She did so; but she couldn't tell me much more. Say, son, how on top of
earth did you happen to blow in at midnight, with Jack Barto for your
herd leader?"
"It's a fairy tale, and you won't believe it--of a Blount," was the
laughing reply. "I left Boston Monday, and should have reached the
capital last night. But my train was laid out by a yard wreck at Twin
Buttes just before dark, and I left it and took to the hills--horseback.
Don't ask me why I did such a thing as that; I can only say that the
smell of the sage-brush got into my blood and I simply had to do it.
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