his crops, watched them wither away in the terrible dry months,
roughed it through the winters, tried again, fought through another
drought, staked all on the next spring's planting, raised a
half-crop, paid off his chattel mortgage, tried again,--succeeded.

"I've stayed right with it," he said gravely, looking from one to
the other as they smoked in silence, their eyes on his animated
face. "Of course, they required me to stay on the land only during
certain months, every year. But I stayed with it all the time; and
I studied it; and when I failed, as I did year after year, I failed
each time in a different way, because I learned my lesson. And when
I'd walled off the cause of each failure, one by one, seemed like
there opened before me a broad clear way that led right into the
goal I'd been seeking from the first day. Then I closed out all my
deals, and looked and saw that everything was trim and ready for
winter--and got my horse and started for Greer County."

"And glad we are!" cried Bill Atkins. "I hope you can stay a long
time."

"That depends ... Lahoma is well, I suppose?"

"The picture of health--when she left," Brick declared admiringly,
"and the prettiest little gal this side of the angels. When the
early sunlight peeps over the mountain and laughs at the cove that's
sulking from thinking it's about to be left out in the day's
doings--that's like Lahoma's smile. And when you get down sick as
I done once from causes incidental to being made of flesh and blood,
and she come and laid her hand on my burning forehead, her touch
always made me think of an angel's wing, somehow, although I ain't