'd set up for her, where
there's warmth and beauty. Where there's no other care for her than to
yield you the wifely companionship you're yearning for. I guess she's
the one gal can hand you those things. If you don't do it, and do it
quick, you'll find the fruit in the pouch of another. Say, the harvest
comes along in its season, and it's got to be reaped. If the right
feller don't get busy--well, I guess some other feller will. There's
not a thing waits around in this world."

The braying of the band deadened the sound of laughter, and the rattle
of glasses, and the talk going on below. Kars was still gazing down
upon the throng of pleasure seekers, basking in the brilliant glare of
light which searched the pallid and unhealthy, and enhanced the beauty
where artificiality concealed the real. His mood was intense. His
thoughts were hundreds of miles away. Quite suddenly he turned his
strong face to his friend. There was a deep light in his steady eyes,
and a grim setting to his lips.

"I'm going to collect that harvest," he said, with a deliberate
emphasis. "If you don't know it you should. But I'm collecting it my
way. I'm going to marry Jessie, if your old friend Prov don't butt in.
But I'm going to cut the ground under the feet of the other feller my
own way, first. I've got to do that. I've a notion. It's come to me
slow. Not the way notions come to you, Bill. I'm different. I can
act like lightning when it's up to me, but I can't see into a brick
wall half as far as you--nor so quick. I've bin looking into a brick
wall ever since we hit Bell River, and I've seen quite a piece into it.
I'm not going to hand you what I've seen--yet. I've got to see more.
I won't see the real till I make Bell River again. If what I guess I'm
going to see is right, after that I'm going to marry Jessie right away,
and she, and her _mother_, and me--well, we're going to quit the north.
There won't be a long trail in this country can drag me an inch from
the terminals of civilization after that."

A deep satisfaction shone in the doctor's smiling eyes as he gazed at
the serious face of his friend. But there was question, too.

"You've laid a plain case but I don't see the whole drift," he said.
"Still you've fixed to marry Jessie, and quit this darnation country.
For me it goes at that--till you fancy opening out. But you're still
bent on the Bell River play. I've got all you said to me on the trail
down. Y