me. Uncle Robert was wise. He knew George had the far-away vision
of far ahead, the energy, and the steadiness. He saw, even then,
and that's fifty years ago, the value of the Nahala water-rights
which nobody else valued then. They thought he was struggling to
buy the cattle range. He struggled to buy the future of the water-
-and how well he succeeded you know. I'm almost ashamed to think
of my income sometimes. No; whatever else, the unhappiness of our
marriage was not due to George. I could have lived happily with
him, I know, even to this day, had he lived." She shook her head
slowly. "No; it was not his fault. Nor anybody's. Not even mine.
If it was anybody's fault--" The wistful fondness of her smile
took the sting out of what she was about to say. "If it was
anybody's fault it was Uncle John's."

"Uncle John's!" Martha cried with sharp surprise. "If it had to be
one or the other, I should have said Uncle Robert. But Uncle
John!"

Bella smiled with slow positiveness.

"But it was Uncle Robert who made you marry George Castner," her
sister urged.

"That is true," Bella nodded corroboration. "But it was not the
matter of a husband, but of a horse. I wanted to borrow a horse
from Uncle John, and Uncle John said yes. That is how it all
happened."

A silence fell, pregnant and cryptic, and, while the voices of the
children and the soft mandatory protests of the Asiatic maids drew