well-fixed as I am thet made ye
think so master much of me."

Then indeed the sprites and goblins of ironic mirth rioted in
Halloway's brain. The surge of laughter that sought outlet from his
lips came near to smothering him, but he succeeded in smothering
it--though the effort almost clicked him. He, with a wealth which
would have seemed to her as the treasure of the Incas, was falling
under suspicion as a lazy fortune-hunter, seeking haven in the meager
opulence of a mountain farm! Yet he dared not confess that wealth now
because such admission would stamp him an impostor.

"I reckon," he said generously, though with just a touch of hurt pride.
"I kin live down that distrust. Does ye suspicion Jerry O'Keefe
too--or jest me?"

"Nobody couldn't suspicion Jerry," she said softly. "He's es straight
es a poplar saplin' an' es plain ter see through es a clear
spring-branch. He knows how ter gentle a woman, too."

"He don't understand ye an' ye'd mighty soon sicken of jest bein'
gentled," argued Halloway. "He hain't got no idea of ther fires thet
lays sleepin' in yore heart."

"He's got an idee of ther fire in his own, I reckon," replied Alexander.

It is the accepted rule of these mountains that when two men arrive to
"set up" with a girl at the same time, she must choose between them and
send the less favored away. Both Halloway and Jerry avoided the issue
that might spring from such a situation. They met on the high-road
with a full seeming of their old accord, but perhaps the semblance was
an empty shell--or fast becoming one. There was a tacit understanding
between them that certain evenings at Alexander's house belonged to
each.

In Jerry's good-natured, whimsical eyes there had settled of late an
unaccustomed gravity and since he was level-headed enough to recognize
in Halloway a man who loomed brightly above others, his fear of him as
a rival was genuine. It was O'Keefe's way to walk boldly and evenly
through life, but a strong and tireless man will flinch in his gait
from the hurt of a stone-bruised foot, and with Jerry the stone bruise
was about the heart--which is worse. But it was more in the casual
meeting than by the formal call, that O'Keefe conducted his courtship.
He had a genius for materializing on the scene at the exact moment when
he could perform some simple service, and of meeting Alexander by
studious coincidence when she least expected him.

There was none-the-less the constant