On such trips they would be gone anywhere from a week to ten days or two weeks, and once they managed a three weeks' trip.
They even planned ambitiously some day when they were disgracefully prosperous, to ride all the way up to Daylight's boyhood home in Eastern Oregon, stopping on the way at Dede's girlhood home in Siskiyou.
And all the joys of anticipation were theirs a thousand times as they contemplated the detailed delights of this grand adventure.
One day, stopping to mail a letter at the Glen Ellen post office, they were hailed by the blacksmith.
"Say, Daylight," he said, "a young fellow named Slosson sends you his regards.
He came through in an auto, on the way to Santa Rosa.
He wanted to know if you didn't live hereabouts, but the crowd with him was in a hurry.
So he sent you his regards and said to tell you he'd taken your advice and was still going on breaking his own record."
Daylight had long since told Dede of the incident.
"Slosson?" he meditated,
"Slosson?
That must be the hammer-thrower.
He put my hand down twice, the young scamp."
He turned suddenly to Dede.
"Say, it's only twelve miles to Santa Rosa, and the horses are fresh."
She divined what was in his mind, of which his twinkling eyes and sheepish, boyish grin gave sufficient advertisement, and she smiled and nodded acquiescence.
"We'll cut across by Bennett Valley," he said.
"It's nearer that way."
There was little difficulty, once in Santa Rosa, of finding Slosson.
He and his party had registered at the Oberlin Hotel, and Daylight encountered the young hammer-thrower himself in the office.
"Look here, son," Daylight announced, as soon as he had introduced Dede, "I've come to go you another flutter at that hand game.
Here's a likely place."
Slosson smiled and accepted.
The two men faced each other, the elbows of their right arms on the counter, the hands clasped.
Slosson's hand quickly forced backward and down.
"You're the first man that ever succeeded in doing it," he said.
"Let's try it again."
"Sure," Daylight answered.
"And don't forget, son, that you're the first man that put mine down.
That's why I lit out after you to-day."
Again they clasped hands, and again Slosson's hand went down.
He was a broad-shouldered, heavy-muscled young giant, at least half a head taller than Daylight, and he frankly expressed his chagrin and asked for a third trial.
This time he steeled himself to the effort, and for a moment the issue was in doubt.
With flushed face and set teeth he met the other's strength till his crackling muscles failed him.
The air exploded sharply from his tensed lungs, as he relaxed in surrender, and the hand dropped limply down.
"You're too many for me," he confessed.
"I only hope you'll keep out of the hammer-throwing game."
Daylight laughed and shook his head.
"We might compromise, and each stay in his own class. You stick to hammer-throwing, and I'll go on turning down hands."
But Slosson refused to accept defeat.
"Say," he called out, as Daylight and Dede, astride their horses, were preparing to depart.
"Say—do you mind if I look you up next year?
I'd like to tackle you again."
"Sure, son.
You're welcome to a flutter any time.
Though I give you fair warning that you'll have to go some.
You'll have to train up, for I'm ploughing and chopping wood and breaking colts these days."
Now and again, on the way home, Dede could hear her big boy-husband chuckling gleefully.
As they halted their horses on the top of the divide out of Bennett Valley, in order to watch the sunset, he ranged alongside and slipped his arm around her waist.
"Little woman," he said, "you're sure responsible for it all.