At nine o'clock Bud went home. He was feeling very well satisfied with himself for some reasonwhich he did not try to analyze, but which was undoubtedly his sense of having saved Bill fromthrowing away six hundred dollars on a bum car; and the weight in his coat pocket of a box ofchocolates that he had bought for Marie. Poor girl, it was kinda tough on her, all right, being tied tothe house now with the kid. Next spring when he started his run to Big Basin again, he would get alittle camp in there by the Inn, and take her along with him when the travel wasn't too heavy. Shecould stay at either end of the run, just as she took a notion. Wouldn't hurt the kid a bit-he'd bebigger then, and the outdoors would make him grow like a pig. Thinking of these things, Budwalked briskly, whistling as he neared the little green house, so that Marie would know who it was, and would not be afraid when he stepped up on the front porch.He stopped whistling rather abruptly when he reached the house, for it was dark. He tried thedoor and found it locked. The key was not in the letter box where they always kept it for theconvenience of the first one who returned, so Bud went around to the back and climbed throughthe pantry window. He fell over a chair, bumped into the table, and damned a few things. Theelectric light was hung in the center of the room by a cord that kept him groping and clutching inthe dark before he finally touched the elusive bulb with his fingers and switched on the light.The table was set for a meal-but whether it was dinner or supper Bud could not determine. Hewent into the little sleeping room and turned on the light there, looked around the empty room, grunted, and tiptoed into the bedroom. (In the last month he had learned to enter on his toes, lest hewaken the baby.) He might have saved himself the bother, for the baby was not there in its newgocart. The gocart was not there, Marie was not there-one after another these facts impressedthemselves upon Bud's mind, even before he found the letter propped against the clock in theorthodox manner of announcing unexpected departures. Bud read the letter, crumpled it in his fist, and threw it toward the little heating stove. "If that's the way yuh feel about it, I'll tell the world youcan go and be darned!" he snorted, and tried to let that end the matter so far as he was concerned.But he could not shake off the sense of having been badly used. He did not stop to consider thatwhile he was working off his anger, that day, Marie had been rocking back and forth, crying andmagnifying the quarrel as she dwelt upon it, and putting a new and sinister meaning into Bud's illconsidered utterances. By the time Bud was thinking only of the bargain car's hidden faults, Mariehad reached the white heat of resentment that demanded vigorous action. Marie was packing asuitcase and meditating upon the scorching letter she meant to wri