paid by
any other town in the whole Sage Brush Valley; to the end that better
schools were housed in that fine school-building, and a finer class of
young citizens began to put the good name of New Eden above everything
else. The hoodlum element was there, of course, but it was not the
leading element. Boys stuck to the high-school faithfully and followed
it up with a college course, even though a large per cent. of them
worked for every dollar that the course cost them. Girls went to
college, too, until it became a rare thing to find a teacher in the
whole valley who had not a diploma from some institution of higher
learning.

It was only recently that Laura Macpherson had come to New Eden to make
her home with her brother. An accident a few years before had shortened
one limb, making her limp as she walked. She was some years older than
York, with a face as young and very much like her brother's; a comely,
companionable sort of woman, popular alike with men and women, young
folks and children.

Some time before her coming York had bought the best building-site in
New Eden, a wooded knoll inside the corporation limits, the only natural
woodland in the vicinity, that stood directly across the far end of
Broad Avenue, the main business street, whose mile of paving ended in
York's driveway. In one direction, this site commanded a view far down
Sage Brush Valley; in the other, it overlooked the best residence and
business portion of New Eden. Here York had, as he put it, "built a
porch, at the rear of which a few rooms were attached." The main glory
of the place, however, was the big porch.

York had named their home "Castle Cluny," and his big farm joining it
just outside the town limits "Kingussie," after some old Macpherson-clan
memories. There were no millionaires in the Sage Brush Valley, and this
home was far and away the finest, as well as the most popular, home in a
community where thrift and neatness abounded in the homes, and elegance
was very much lacking, as was to be expected in a young town on the far
edge of the Middle West.

"Joe Thomson came in to-day to see me about putting a mortgage on his
claim this side of the big blowout. Looks like a losing game for Joe.
His land is about one-third sand now," York commented, thoughtfully, as
he settled himself comfortably in his big porch chair.

"Well, why not let the sand have its own third, while he uses the other
two-thirds himself? They ought to keep him