Still, it was plain that the stroke was not to be the final one. In the outer room, while the drear wind tormented the valley and blotted it from their sight, Dunsmuir made known his business. Here," said he, "is the last of the money that 's so long overdue; and it comes none too soon, my poor woman. I suppose you would not have asked me for a penny, however ye were?

"Indeed, an' I would," answered Margaret. "That's no way o' my pride. But ye need na cum'er yoursel' wi' us. We have made out vera weel, as ye can see. We have wantit for naething in reason. And I'm just thankfu' that we cam awa' here to oursel', as he was aye fleechin' an' beggin' me to do. He'd a hankerin' to set the place in order, or ere he left me to fend for mysel'. I'm thinkin' he'll have had his warnin'."

"You put shame upon us all, Margaret, when you talk of fending for yourself. Who was it stood by me in the mother's place to my children, with all the mother's cares, and none of her honors or blood rights? I shall never try to tell you how it fared with me to see you go out of my house without even your money wages in your pocket. You'll give us the right now to show you 're something more to us than a chance comer and goer. Come, I must have your promise that you'll let me know, from this forth, whatever you 're in want of. So far as I'm able, I'll see that you get it."

By four o'clock the wind had moderated so that Dunsmuir was able to set out home again and to send a messenger for the doctor. He had proposed to come back himself and to spend the night; but Margaret seemed so distressed at his taking such unwonted trouble, that he wisely substituted the offer of Dolly's company, with a trusty man to stay by the ranch. It was easy to surprise Margaret's wishes now; she was off all her guards at once, and softened to the simple truthfulness of grief. She accepted what she wanted, and was fearless in refusing.

A fair, rosy evening followed the storm. There had been rain higher up, on the mountains, and the freshness had descended without the moisture; gusts of coolness scattered the dry roses and rustled the withering. vines. Philip very definitely proposed to be the man who should accompany Dolly and watch with her at the ranch. And Dunsmuir, who depended on him, though he might not own it, was thankful for his offer. Philip hurried to change his dress after dinner. He heard Dolly at the trunks in the attic, and went to the door, as once she had come, to see what was doing in there. She was hunting for an old dressing-gown of her father's, also for certain

pairs of fine woolen socks Margaret had knitted for him one Christmas when he had complained of cold feet, and he had unwittingly hurt her feelings by never wearing. She thought with awe of Job's condition, that he should need to be warmed in such weather. She was as red as a poppy with the heat and perhaps from other causes. She was in her dressing-sack; but to Philip's untutored eye there was no suggestion of dishabille in the pretty white jacket sprigged with roses, which showed a pair of arms he loved to look at, whether bare or sleeved. He longed to do all manner of wild homages to Dolly—to her arms and hands and feet and little fair head of tumbled hair. She was in a great fuss and hurry, trying one trunk after another; she grew troubled in her search, partly at Philip's help, which confused her and made it impossible to think or to remember.

In the third trunk they tried, the upper tray was filled with a large, soft, fragrant bundle that rustled richly and smelled of lavender and attar of roses.

"What can this be, laid away so preciously?" Philip smiled, with man-like curiosity, quickened by his flattered senses. “This must be the offering of the wise-hearted, in 'blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen.' Might one take a peep? This is surely the odor of sanctity."

Dolly shrinkingly owned that it might beit was her mother's wedding-dress. And Philip abased himself in silence. She permitted him to lift out the long tray, and, as he did so, one end caught, and came up with a jerk that sent a small parcel to the floor.

"Oh!" said she," I must show you these— Alan's and my christening things. You 'd never believe what pretty clothes I once wore, before I was a beggar-maid. But perhaps this is too childish?"

"I scarcely know you any more,”— Philip pretended offense,-"you have so many doubts and primmy notions. Once you were not afraid to be childish."

They bent together over the small, soft bundle as Dolly unpinned it on her lap, and displayed the ridiculous proportions of the tiny garments, doting with a seamstress's enthusiasm on their exquisite finish. She explained the mysteries of lace tuckers that folded down, and sleeves that looped up, and held one frock beneath her chin to show its sumptuous length from bib to hem of loveliest needlework, and every stitch set by hand. A subtle rich perfume, long laid away in the yellowing folds, stole forth upon the garret's tropic warmth. It spoke to them of memories merged in dreams, of a future tremulously foreshadowed. Philip, half intoxicated by the intimacy of these researches, was the only conscious one;

Dolly was simply girlishly flattered by his impassioned interest in her sartorial past. These pompous little robes had been the delight of her earliest visits to the attic; but the wedding-gown had ever been hedged about with careful ceremonies and precautions. No hands but Margaret's had ever ventured to unfold those lengths of shimmering satin and creamy drifts of lace, nor could Dolly realize that she was now sole keeper of the garments in which the sacred mother-past lay folded away. Something of this she tried to say; for Philip was one who seemed to understand everything.

"I have almost a guilty feeling, do you know, when I come here and rummage by myself. All the history of our poor house lies packed away in these trunks, ever since it stopped in the cañon, and nothing more happened. All my mother's happy girl-days were put away here, with her evening-gowns, and her pretty shoes, and fans, and sashes; and here"— Dolly laid her hand softly on the wedding-gown-" she was a bride; and here, a mother; and then it was all over, and Margaret locked her trunks and has kept the keys ever since. And we children never really knew her. We have no right here, do you think?" She was sitting on the closed trunk-lid, the keys hanging from her warm hand, blanched with the heat and tremulous from exertion. Transported by that unconscious "we," Philip bent and kissed the hand-only the little finger of it that lay apart. It was his one transgression. Dolly turned her face away; the tears sprang to her eyes. Poor Margaret! Had she forgotten Margaret, who never would have forgotten her? Her look put Philip far from her, and he was moved to say humbly: "Would you rather some one else went with you to the ranch? "

"Why should you think so? and who else is there to go?"

Philip smiled; it was hard to wait. He looked at her troubled face, all flushed and weary with a childish abandonment, and thought of all the Rests, as many as the Joys of Mary, with which they could rest each other. She needed the rest of change; and quickly he was rapt away in his besetting dream, of two young student lovers,- he with the better grasp, she with the subtler feeling,-nesting in the old cities of art and learning, always referring their work to the special requirements of the life awaiting them at home. He felt himself not content to be merely a builder of ditches; he looked forward to being an administrator of waters in the new communities water should create, and here came in the human element which immensely enlarged the scope of his work and of her helpfulness.

That night at the ranch Dolly watched him

fetch and carry for Margaret the wood and the water, and gravely consult with her about the chores. She heard him speaking words which seemed inspired by the most delicate discernment. She saw him with Job's head against his shoulder (in the name of all pity, what a contrast!) while Margaret fed medicines into the relaxed mouth that could neither protest nor thank her any more. She jealously watched for a sign of repugnance, or condescension, or relief when the ordeal was over, and saw him always simple, sensitive, and brotherly, through all the discomfort, and sorrow, and squalor of the night. She saw, above all, that Margaret accepted him with the sure instinct of grief, taking his presence and his most intimate services as much a matter of course as her own. Dolly was comforted in her instinctive faith. Her proofs were sufficient to herself. He might have come of shabby ancestry, he might have cared and ceased to care; none the less he was a friend, a gentleman, a comrade she could give her hand to in joy or sorrow, and her people were his people and her poor were his poor.

Philip went away next morning after breakfast, saying he would return or send some one in his place to spend the night. Breakfast had been early; at ten the doctor made his visit; the remainder of the day seemed endless. After the supper-things had been set away, Margaret lay down beside the sick man, and fell asleep. Whether Job slept or not Dolly could not be sure; he lay quiet with closed eyes. She went out and walked about the dusty premises, the roosting fowls inquiring concerning her presence with querulous squalls and sidelong duckings. She walked from the door to the fence and back till she knew every weed by the path. At the gate she would stop and look up the cañon road; then she restricted her looking to every other time. Now and again she opened the cabin door and listened, and heard only the clock ticking and the kettle rising to a boil. She had wearied herself with walking, and was going in when she saw Philip dismounting at the gate; he had come across through the sage-brush. He walked beside his horse up the dusty path, and she went out gladly to meet him.

With an odd, embarrassed smile, in silence he handed her a letter. It was addressed to her father, and it had been opened.

"Did you know it was from Alan ?" "Oh, yes," said Philip; "your father read me parts of it." Dolly thought his manner very peculiar.

"If the news is bad, I wish you would tell me first."

"There is news; but I don't know if you will call it bad."

"Does papa?"

Well, yes—rather. Will you not read the letter? There is nothing shocking in it."

"There are pages and pages! New York, September 25. Has n't he sailed yet?" "Won't you read the letter, Dolly?" "What is all this about Estelle? Who is Estelle, for pity's sake?" Dolly had gone to the root of the matter.

"Estelle Summercamp. Don't you remember-the people who were here last summer, whom Alan met on the train ?"

"Oh, that girl! Has he been with them all this time in New York? and is that why he has not written ?"

"It's hardly fair to Alan not to read what he has to say for himself. I'm sure you 'll find it interesting."

Philip walked away, leading his horse. Dolly, angry and alarmed and sick with a new, ridiculous foreboding, read on, page after page of excited boyish narrative: I came, I saw, I conquered! Dolly was cold to his jubilance, for now she knew what was coming.

"She swears she is five-and-twenty." [This sentence caught her eye, as she hurried along.] "I don't believe it; she does n't look as old as I do, but she knows a precious lot more about everything except riding. We ride every day in the Park; it's awfully dear, but they don't seem to think of the cost of anything, and she says she likes me on horseback. . . . Amongst them they 've got about twelve hundred acres of land. . . . I shall take up my land next theirs; Mr. Summercamp says they will have a railway station and a town directly on the lands... It's gone out that I 'm a younger son- British aristocrat-making money hand over fist in Texas cattle. They don't mind, but I think I see my father smile."

Dolly put down the letter with a flushed and burning face. She was too angry to cry. So Alan was to marry the girl with the laugh; they would go laughing through life together. And all this had been transacting while, in the cañon, days were counted till the coming of his letters, and her father walked the floor at night, as she had heard him, hoping and planning and wrestling for his son. She pushed the cabin door ajar, for she longed to talk it over with Margaret, who had the sure touch in trouble. All was still but Margaret's heavy breathing.

"Na, na," she muttered in her sleep, "he wad be shoggen a' to pieces. I could na bear

to see it."

The lump rose in Dolly's throat. She felt, as never in her life before, how poor they were in numbers, how isolated from larger circles where life was a bustling business, and people made new friends and broke with old ones every day. How easily Alan had affiliated

with all that seemed so hostile, so insolent, to herself! All the world to Dolly was made up of Summercamps, and their money and their plans and their pleasures. She had no heart to go on with Alan's rank rejoicings. In the stillness of that smitten place there was almost a ribald tone in his talk of dinners, and theaterparties, and roses at a dollar apiece, and new clothes, and new friends who had never heard of the cañon or the scheme. Philip came and sat beside her, unbuckling his spurs, and knocking off the dust on the door-step.

"Why do you take it so seriously?" "She is five-and-twenty, and he is not nineteen, and they met on the train, and were engaged two days after they reached New York. And he thinks her father and mother are delighted. If they are, they are very strange people."

"Alan is a very sweet boy," said Philip. "Oh, he is, he is! He might have been," sobbed Dolly, breaking down. "But now he'll never be anything but a hanger-on of those people."

They are the same age inside." Philip tried to comfort her. "I spent a day with her myself, remember. She is very jolly, and clever as girls go, and you can't deny she is pretty. And they have a power of money."

it

"So you think because she is pretty and rich must be all right!" cried Dolly, scornfully. "I think it might be much worse. Better not be too proud.'"

Her lips trembled. "I know very well what you mean. You think, with poor Alan, the most we can ask is to be defended from the worst. But, except for Pacheco and all her squalid connections, I'd sooner it had been Antonia."

"O Dolly, no! There are possibilities with a Miss Summercamp, but none with an Antonia. Miss Summercamp may be the very means appointed for Alan's discipline. Come, Dolly," he said, rising and offering his hand; "come, you must brace up, you know. You will have to comfort your father. He hates it rather worse than you do."

They walked on toward the gate together, Dolly clasping and twisting the letter in her nervous hands.

"Is n't it pitiful, is n't it absurd! One can't have even the comfort of calling it a sorrow! Alan could never do anything that was expected of him. And what will be the next thing. I wonder? Margaret has always said the price would be required of us, if ever we should get our great wish. The work is going on; all has come to pass that we used to pray for-but there is Alan's cap on the wall, and papa does not look as if success agreed with him.”

"Dolly, you are not going back on the scheme?"

“Ah, it costs too much. And it may not be for us, after all."

"That should not matter. And we are in it now for all we are worth. When a thing like this gets started it runs those who thought to run it. Don't go in yet; it is all quiet in there. You look as if you needed a walk. Take my arm ?" "No; people must walk wide apart in this dust."

"Take my hand, then."

"I need both hands for my skirts." "Fiddlededee your skirts! I never saw a small person so occupied with her clothes. You should wear buckskins, like a little squawsy, and then you could trot alongside and kick up all the dust you pleased." "If I were a squaw I should trot behind." "Not if you were my squaw."

Dolly's chin went up, and she walked wider than ever; but she was no longer quite so melancholy; and presently she began quoting, in a tone of high derision:

"We twa ha'e paidlet i' the burn

And pu'd the gowans fine.

"How Margaret used to love to sing those words to us, who never heard the sound of a burn in all our lives! And she from a country that sang and shouted with water!"

"What does it matter where we do our paddling? It's whom we paddle with. I can fancy just as good paddling in this dust of the plains as in any burn that ever brawled; only I should paddle on horseback, with my squaw on a pony beside me. Come out where we have n't these lines of fence-posts in our faces. Hark! How still it is, after the cañon!" Night was falling, the clear sky of the desert darkening slowly without a cloud. Dew on the pungent sage dampened the dust and gave strength to the air they breathed. A bell-mare hoppled somewhere in the brush clanked flatly as she stepped. Coyotes raved in the far offing like a pack of demented dogs. Against the low, bright west loomed a cowboy shape, enlarging in a spurt of dust that unrolled and drifted to leeward. He veered and passed them afar, and the beat of his horse's hoofs throbbed, fainter and fainter, long after the dust hid him.

"Dolly," said Philip, "don't forget what we are here for: this is the land we are going to reclaim. Can you not fancy it-miles and miles, at sunset, shining with ditches, catching the sky in gleams; and the low houses and the crops, and the dark lines of trees reflected in the water-channels? You will like it when you see it, and I should n't be surprised if you called it home. And if there are no burns, there will be gentle, sober ditches. Our waters shall do their singing and shouting up in the

mountains; they come down here on business. Your burns are nothing but mad children. Ditches are tender, good mothers, taking thought where they go, not ripping and tearing through the land. Oh, you will like it, and one day you will own it for your country. You are a 'bunch-grass belle,' Dolly, however you may boast of your heather."

XIX.

By the following spring Job had so far recovered from his stroke as to be able to sit in the rude wheeled-chair contrived for him, in front of the cabin in the sunshine, and to watch Margaret digging in the garden, or watering the calves, or hanging out her wash on the lines Job had put up for her in the days of his usefulness. A neighbor had taken the management of the farm "on shares," but, with the chores and the housework and the care of the invalid, Margaret's hands were full. The doctor had said that Job might be with her in his present condition for years, or he might be smitten again without warning, and pass away in a few hours. His speech had not come back, beyond a few drear mutterings intelligible to no one but Margaret. When they were alone she talked to him as a child to her doll, or as a mother to her speechless but sentient infant.

One afternoon, close upon the finish of the cañon work, Dunsmuir sat and talked with Margaret in the door of the claim-cabin, and between them, bolstered in his chair, was that sad effigy of Job. Spring had changed everything since the day of the gray September dust-storm. The little house stood low, on the edge of a rich bottom grown up in wild grass. The willows and cottonwoods had leaves large enough to cast shadows. From the mesa, where Job's main lateral plowed along, the brown, seeded land fell away, like a matronly lap, toward the river. The wheat looked well, considering the unfavorable spring, which is ever the lot of new settlers; but the orchard, planted with trees the size of walking-sticks, was needing water badly. There had been a week of hot, drying winds, most untimely; snow was going fast on the mountains, and the river tumbled by the vivid meadow-grass in a yellow, seething flood.

Dunsmuir praised Margaret's management, and promised her a lot of stuff' for her garden another year. He had grown used to Job's nonentity, and talked across him, cheerfully, as if his chair had been vacant. But Margaret noted every subtle change in the face of her invalid, and whenever a wan, unrestful look of his sought hers, she had always some comforting expedient in reserve.

"I'm charged to tell you," said Dunsmuir,

"Does papa?"

"Well, yes-rather. Will you not read the letter? There is nothing shocking in it."

"There are pages and pages! New York, September 25. Has n't he sailed yet?"

"Won't you read the letter, Dolly?" "What is all this about Estelle? Who is Estelle, for pity's sake?" Dolly had gone to the root of the matter.

"Estelle Summercamp. Don't you remember- the people who were here last summer, whom Alan met on the train ?"

"Oh, that girl! Has he been with them all this time in New York? and is that why he has not written ? "

"It's hardly fair to Alan not to read what he has to say for himself. I'm sure you 'll find it interesting."

Philip walked away, leading his horse. Dolly, angry and alarmed and sick with a new, ridiculous foreboding, read on, page after page of excited boyish narrative: I came, I saw, I conquered! Dolly was cold to his jubilance, for now she knew what was coming.

"She swears she is five-and-twenty." [This sentence caught her eye, as she hurried along.] "I don't believe it; she does n't look as old as I do, but she knows a precious lot more about every thing except riding. We ride every day in the Park; it's awfully dear, but they don't seem to think of the cost of anything, and she says she likes me on horseback. Amongst them they 've got about twelve hundred acres of land. I shall take up my land next theirs; Mr. Summercamp says they will have a railway station and a town directly on the lands. It's gone out that I 'm a younger son-British aristocrat-making money hand over fist in Texas cattle. They don't mind, but I think I see my father smile."

Dolly put down the letter with a flushed and burning face. She was too angry to cry. So Alan was to marry the girl with the laugh; they would go laughing through life together. And all this had been transacting while, in the cañon, days were counted till the coming of his letters, and her father walked the floor at night, as she had heard him, hoping and planning and wrestling for his son. She pushed the cabin door ajar, for she longed to talk it over with Margaret, who had the sure touch in trouble. All was still but Margaret's heavy breathing.

"Na, na," she muttered in her sleep, "he wad be shoggen a' to pieces. I could na bear

to see it."

The lump rose in Dolly's throat. She felt, as never in her life before, how poor they were in numbers, how isolated from larger circles where life was a bustling business, and people made new friends and broke with old ones every day. How easily Alan had affiliated

with all that seemed so hostile, so insolent, to herself! All the world to Dolly was made up of Summercamps, and their money and their plans and their pleasures. She had no heart to go on with Alan's rank rejoicings. In the stillness of that smitten place there was almost a ribald tone in his talk of dinners, and theaterparties, and roses at a dollar apiece, and new clothes, and new friends who had never heard of the cañon or the scheme. Philip came and sat beside her, unbuckling his spurs, and knocking off the dust on the door-step.

"Why do you take it so seriously?"

"She is five-and-twenty, and he is not nineteen, and they met on the train, and were engaged two days after they reached New York. And he thinks her father and mother are delighted. If they are, they are very strange people."

"Alan is a very sweet boy," said Philip. “Oh, he is, he is! He might have been," sobbed Dolly, breaking down. "But now he'll never be anything but a hanger-on of those people."

66

They are the same age inside." Philip tried to comfort her. "I spent a day with her myself, remember. She is very jolly, and clever as girls go, and you can't deny she is pretty. And they have a power of money."

it

"So you think because she is pretty and rich must be all right!" cried Dolly, scornfully. "I think it might be much worse. 'Better not be too proud.''

Her lips trembled. "I know very well what you mean. You think, with poor Alan, the most we can ask is to be defended from the worst. But, except for Pacheco and all her squalid connections, I'd sooner it had been Antonia."

"O Dolly, no! There are possibilities with a Miss Summercamp, but none with an Antonia. Miss Summercamp may be the very means appointed for Alan's discipline. Come, Dolly," he said, rising and offering his hand; "come, you must brace up, you know. You will have to comfort your father. He hates it rather worse than you do."

They walked on toward the gate together, Dolly clasping and twisting the letter in her nervous hands.

"Is n't it pitiful, is n't it absurd! One can't have even the comfort of calling it a sorrow! Alan could never do anything that was expected of him. And what will be the next thing, I wonder? Margaret has always said the price would be required of us, if ever we should get our great wish. The work is going on; all has come to pass that we used to pray for- but there is Alan's cap on the wall, and papa does not look as if success agreed with him."

"Dolly, you are not going back on the scheme?"