migrant trains is slow, say thirteen days on the
road,--that's about another fortnight,--four weeks; this is the fifth,
ain't it? Twenty-eight and five's thirty-three; that'll be the third o'
next month, say. Now mind what I tell you, Brice; don't look fer 'em a
minute before the third,--not a minute."

"'Pears like a long spell to wait, neighbor."

"I know it, man; but it'll seem a thunderin' sight longer after you
begin to look fer 'em."

"I reckon you're right. Say four weeks from to-day, then. Like enough
you'll be goin' in."

"Yes, we'll hitch up and meet 'em at the train,--you and me. The
women'll have things kind o' snug ag'in' we git home. Four weeks'll soon
slide along, man."

Joel went into the house smiling softly.

"I had to be almost savage with the fellow, Barbara. The anxious seat's
no place fer a chap like him; it'd wear him to a toothpick in a week."

"But she might get here before that, you know, Joel."

"I'll fix that with the men at the depot. If she comes sooner we'll have
her out here in a hurry. Wish to goodness she would."

III.

The Southern winter blossomed royally. Bees held high carnival in the
nodding spikes of the white sage, and now and then a breath of perfume
from the orange groves in the valley came up to mingle with the wild
mountain odors. Brice worked every moment with feverish earnestness, and
the pile of gnarled roots on the clearing grew steadily larger. With all
her loveliness, Nature failed to woo him. What was the exquisite languor
of those days to him but so many hours of patient waiting? The dull eyes
saw nothing of the lavish beauty around him then, looking through it all
with restless yearning to where an emigrant train, with its dust and
dirt and noisome breath, crawled over miles of alkali, or hung from
dizzy heights.

"To-morrow's the third, neighbor. I reckon she'll be 'long now
d'reckly."

"That's a fact; what a rattler time is!" The days had not been long to
Joel. "We'll go in to-morrow, and if they don't come you can stay and
watch the trains awhile. She won't know you, Brice; you've picked up
amazingly."

"I think likely Loisy'll know me if she comes."

But she did not come. Joel returned the following night alone, having
left Brice at cheap lodgings near the station. Numberless passers-by
must have noticed the patient watcher at the incoming trains, the homely
pathos of his face deepening day by day, the dull eyes growing a shade
duller, and th