tment was not in his nature, besides which, Seth loved the wind,-but humming a little tune, something soft and reminiscent about his old Kentucky home, with its chorus of "Fare you well, my lady," w

riderless; but as his eyes became accustomed to dust

hich had the effect, together with the haze produced by the

p his mule

ith a sudden rein that sent him back on h

le and stood before Seth, a tall, slim girl of twelve, a girl of complexion brown as berries, of dark eyes heavily fringed with thick lashes and

-like teeth, of an exaggerated white in

," she

said Seth

ken manner of the p

ah

lona," sh

ona w

I ain't got n

rie dogs that stand on their haunches and bark, and yet are ever mindful of

ou come frum

es from here," she answer

we?" ask

n't my real father. He's

and on plough, waiting for her

id ne

out, be there?" she ventured presen

mighty scarce. One about e

im out of her big dark eyes

hbor of your

Seth with ready Southern cor

and pointed t

e miles away," she

h long?" a

lanation, "we blew down. Father and his wife and me. Never had no

sleeve acro

she sighed, "without no neighbors. Ne

u move, then?

s moved. Father likes it here, but I g

truck an ans

s wheah I live. My wife's theah all by herself. She's lonesome, too. Maybe

mane of her broncho, and swung herself into

the girl come out of the Nowhere, as she had come upon him,

ied. "I will

rairie to Celia's door, the girl, laughing at the idea o

, Southern, aristocratic, in sharp contrast with th

imated bronze of the untrammelled West emphasized by the highlights of sunshine glimmering on curl and dimple, on br

he prairies, necessarily elevated in defiance of the w