and the same little walk of four blocks there and back. Every Tuesday and
Friday the club meeting--the Merry Maids, and the Mascot, both just alike,
where you did the same things. And the same round of calls with mamma,
on the same people, twice a month the year round. And the little social
festivities--ah, Manley, if you only knew how I tong for something rough
and real in my life!" It was very nearly what she said to the tired-faced
teacher on the train.

"Well, if that's what you want, you've come to the right place," he told
her dryly.

Later, when they drew close to a red coulee rim which he said was the far
side of Cold Spring Coulee, she forgot how tired she was, and felt every
nerve quiver with eagerness.

Later still, when in the glare of a July sun they drove around a low knoll,
dipped into a wide, parched coulee, and then came upon a barren little
habitation inclosed in a meager fence of the barbed wire she thought so
detestable, she shut her eyes mentally to something she could not quite
bring herself to face.

He lifted her out and tumbled the great trunks upon the ground before he
drove on to the corrals. "Here's the key," he said, "if you want to go in.
I won't be more than a minute or two." He did not look into her face when
he spoke.

Val stood just inside the gate and tried to adjust all this to her mental
picture. There was the front yard, for instance. A few straggling vines
against the porch, and a sickly cluster or two of blossoms--those were the
sweet peas, surely. The sun-baked bed of pale-green plants without so much