"The devil was in her heels and in her tongue," Andy continued. "With
her big mouth, red hair, and little eyes, she'd have made anybody laugh.
I laughed."

"You laughed!" snapped out his father with a sneer.

Black Andy's eyes half closed with a morose look, then he went on. "Yes,
I laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley's getting cured,
accordin' to the doctor's orders, things seemed to get a move on in the
West. But it didn't suit professing Christians like you, dad." He
jerked his head towards the old man and drew the spittoon near with his
feet.

"The West hasn't been any worse off since she left," snarled the old man.

"Well, she took George with her," grimly retorted Black Andy.

Abel Baragar's heart had been warmer towards his dead son George than
to any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair
as Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and
dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was
slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was
phlegmatic and sour--or so it seemed to the father and to nearly all
others.

In those old days they had not been very well off. The railway was not
completed, and the West had not begun "to move." The old man had bought
and sold land and cattle and horses, always living on a narrow margin of
safety, but in the hope that one day the choice bits of land he was