spring?" he queried, over his shoulder, "Water's the first thing--I'm
horribly thirsty."

Val turned to follow him. "Oh, yes--the spring!" She stopped, however, as
soon as she had spoken. "No, dear. There'll be plenty of other times. I'll
stay here."

He gave her a glance bright with love and blind happiness in her presence
there, and went off whistling and rattling the pail at his side.

Val did not even watch him go. She stood still in the kitchen and looked at
the table, and at the stove, and at the upturned frying pans. She watched
two great horseflies buzzing against a window-pane, and when she could
endure that no longer, she went into the front room and stared vacantly
around at the bare walls. When she saw her picture again, nailed
fast beside the kitchen door, her face lost a little of its frozen
blankness--enough so that her lips quivered until she bit them into
steadiness.

She went then to the door and stood looking dully out into the parched
yard, and at the wizened little pea vines clutching feebly at their
white-twine trellis. Beyond stretched the bare hills with the wavering
brown line running down the nearest one--the line that she knew was the
trail from town. She was guilty of just one rebellious sentence before she
struggled back to optimism.

"I said I wanted it to be rough, but I didn't mean--why, this is just
squalid!" She looked down the coulee and glimpsed the river flowing calmly
past the mouth of it, a majestic blue belt fringed sparsely with green.
It must be a mile away, but it relieved wonderfully the monotony of brown