ankets, watching the walls of the tent grow light, and the splinter between the flaps turn f

under the unfamiliar cloud. Then the memory of last night took form, her gloom suddenly concentrated on a reason, and she sunk beneath it, staring fixedly at the crack of growing light. When she heard

impelled her like an inexorable fate toward marriage and the man. The children that were to be, urged her toward their creator. And the unconquered maidenhood that was still hers, recoiled with trembling reluctance from i

y marked her. Already the first suggestion of the woman-like the first breath of the

his figure with a clouded glance as she told her father her news. H

please me better. Seeing David this way, day by day, I've come to k

the old sauciness that this morning looked a little f

're such a wise

nizing the tone, and to-day, with

laugh at me. This

I wasn't laughing-it was because I'm so happy. You don't know what this means to me. I've wanted it so much that I've been

if you're hap

-age to a secured future. He had been a man of a single love, ignorant save of that one woman, and she so worshiped and wondered at that there had been no ti

ize how wonderful it is, just said to yourself 'This is life-this is what I was born for,' when it's over. And then you begin to understand, to look back, and see that it was no

is journey, like t

e it's all parched and bare. And you and your companion go on, fighting against the hardships, bound closer and closer by the struggle. You learn to give up, to think of the other one, and then you s

life, and his daughter, of the unknown ones coming, were

t," she said, from returning waves of melanch

earie, and they say that's the mo

y," she said wistfully, not

for l

e'll ever feel

ornia, once the goal of her dreams, now seem an a

est in our hearts like all pioneers. Soon it will cease being strange, when there are c

laid his hand on hers a

happy in it,"

m she could speak plainly, some one who once had felt as she did now. For the first time she wished that there was another woman in the train. Her instinct told her that men could n

op and giving her two thirds of the driver's seat. With h

appen?" she said, trying to com

to rain,"

ive of future sympathy, but at

ld I get off my horse and climb up be

ou've got that wild out here on the p

cal tenderness. She smiled bravely and he saw above the s

in' to happen?"

ng to be

eyebrows and g

ethin'! And

avid, of course. Wh

wly, with considering phlegm. "He's

nice way to speak of him. Can

t surprised at the news but he was surprised at something in his Missy's manner, a la

ne can say he ain't. But some way or other, I'

s nearly six feet. And girls don't pick o

ger in what's in him-can get ho

ot a big mind you're all wrong. He knows more than anybody I ev

u got the butcher and the police and a kerosene lamp to read 'em by. David 'ud be a fine boy in the town just as his books is suitable in the town. But this ain't the town. And the men that

apped. "Why don't

Her face was partly turned away. The curve of her cheek was devoid of its usua

uraged for?" he said low, as

her head, but loo

oarse cleared her throat. "It's all-so-so-sort of new.

one, her pride fell with it. Wheeling on the sea

sp, and then bent her head so that her

eld of her broken hat. He was thoroughly discomfited for he had not the least idea what was the m

to marry him?"

at, it's som

ng you like to me. Ain't I car

e cut by sobbing breaths. "I don't under

emedy ready for this complain

im," he said. "If you want to tell him s

him. It's

what's maki

down deep that makes everything

over the wheel, then subs

e said, his imagi

, ve

five put together, and whom he loved beyond them all. In his bewildered anxiety the thought passed through his mind that all creatures of the feminine g

sting his head beyond the canvas hood,

e old man, drawing his head in, "a

self a coward had dared to raise his eyes to the one star in Daddy John's firmament. He would not have hidde

ned to

e down. Here comes Leff and

he back of the wagon where she lay concealed on a pile of sacks. In the forward opening where the canvas was drawn in a circle round a segment of s

asleep in the ba

's voice,

ain't an hour s

morning if she wants? Don't you go t

that's a

not as slow as you at ge

pondering. There was a pause, then came the young man's heavy foots

Missy," he said, over his shoulder.