the foot-hills in the far front as the first settled
minister of Big River, the pride of his Convener's heart, the friend
and shepherd of the scattered farmers and ranchers of the district.
Once only did he come near to regretting his choice, and then not for
his own sake, but for the sake of the young girl whom he had learned to
love and whose love he had gained during his student days. Would she
leave home and friends and the social circle of which she was the
brightest ornament for all that he could offer? He had often written to
her, picturing in the radiant colours of his own Western sky the glory
of prairie, foot-hill, and mountain, the greatness and promise of the
new land, and the worth of the work he was trying to do. But his two
years of missionary experience had made him feel the hardship, the
isolation, the meagreness, of the life which she would have to share
with him. The sunset colours were still there, but they were laid upon
ragged rock, lonely hill, and wind-swept, empty prairie. It took him
days of hard riding and harder thinking to give final form to the last
paragraph of his letter:

"I have tried faithfully to picture my life and work. Can you brave all
this? Should I ask you to do it? My work, I feel, lies here, and it's
worth a man's life. But whether you will share it, it is for you to
decide. If you feel you cannot, believe me, I shall not blame you, but
shall love and honour you as before. But though it break my heart I
cannot go back from what I see to be my work. I belong to you, but
first I belong to Him who is both your Master and mine."

In due time her answer came. He carried her letter out to a favourite
haunt of his in a sunny coolie where an old creek-bed was marked by
straggling willows, and there, throwing himself down upon the sloping
grass, he read her message.

"I know, dear, how much that last sentence of yours cost you, and my
answer is that were your duty less to you, you would be less to me. How
could I honour and love a man who, for the sake of a girl or for any
sake, would turn back from his work? Besides, you have taught me too
well to love your glorious West, and you cannot daunt me now by any
such sombre picture as you drew for me in your last letter. No sir. The
West for me! And you should be ashamed--and this I shall make you
properly repent--ashamed to force me to the unmaidenly course of
insisting upon going out to you, 'rounding you up into a corral'--that
is th