"It's a habit I have of wishing to reserve my own things for myself," said Cockney shortly.
"There are worse foibles," was the Professor's sweet reply. He gave the embarrassed laugh that usually preceded a confession. "One of mine is ever so much less respectable. I'm simply scared to a panic at thought of fire—fire anywhere—here at the ranch-house—wherever I spend the night. I know how foolish it is, but my instincts are stronger than my intelligence. I must have been a wolf a few lives back. At home I always sleep downstairs on that account."
"Unless both Stamford and ourselves give up our downstairs rooms I don't see how we can satisfy you at the H-Lazy Z," said Cockney.
"Of course I'd have to be near him," put in Isabel hastily. "So it's quite impossible. Please don't think of indulging his foolishness any more."
"At any rate," said Stamford stubbornly, thinking of the limitations imposed on his uncertain night investigations by an upper room, "I'm not going to give up my room until my host orders it."
"Your host," said Cockney emphatically "is going to do no such thing."
CHAPTER XXII
PINK EYE AND THE ENGLISH SADDLE
Stamford tossed about when he should have been sleeping, worried by a thousand questions, a thousand disturbing suspicions. And through them all ran the thread of his love for Isabel Bulkeley. He could hear her moving about her room, and long after they should have been asleep, the voices of brother and sister came to him in gentle murmur. Added to this was the evidence of a similar wakefulness in the Aikens' bedroom.
Imp came to his door and whined, and Stamford let him in, glad of his companionship. Thereafter, with the watchful little terrier curled on his feet, he found it easier to drift away.