and answer hard questions suddenly.

"Why not go back East?" he asked.

"One of your two last resorts; the other one is madness. I won't do it,"
Jerry said, stubbornly. "Shall I tell you why?"

It was a delicious surprise to the young ranchman to be taken into the
confidence of this charming, gracious girl. The honeysuckle leaves,
stirred by the soft night breeze that came purring across the open
plain, gave the moonbeams leave to play with the rippling gold of her
hair, and to flutter ever so faintly the soft white draperies of her
gown. Her big dark eyes, her fair white throat and shoulders, the faint
pink hue of her cheeks, the shapely white arms below the elbow-frilled
sleeves, her soft voice, her frank trust in his judgment and integrity,
made that appeal that rarely comes to a young man's heart oftener than
once in a lifetime.

"My father lived a rich man and died a poor man, leaving me--for mother
went first--to the care of his wealthy sister. A half-forgotten claim on
the Sage Brush is my only possession after two years of litigation and
all that sort of thing." Jerry paused.

"Well?" Joe queried.

"I was offered one of two alternatives: I might be dependent on my
aunt's bounty or I could come out West and live on my claim. I chose the
West. Now what can I do?"

The pathos of the young face was touching. The question of maintenance
is hard enough for the resourceful and experienced to meet; how doubly
hard it must be to the young, untried, and untrained!

Joe Thomson looked out to where the open prairie, swathed in silvery
mist, seemed to flow up to the indefinite bounds of the town. All the
earth was beautiful in the stillness of the June night.

"I don't know how to advise you," he said, at length. "If you were one
of us--a real Western girl--it would be different."

To Jerry this sincerity outweighed any suggestion he could have offered.
From the point of romance this young man was impossible to Lesa Swaim's
child. Yet truly nobody before, not even York Macpherson, had ever
seemed like such a real friend to her, and the chance acquaintance was
reaching by leaps and bounds toward a genuine comradeship.

"Why do you stay here? You weren't born here, were you? Tell me about
yourself," Jerry demanded.

"There's a big difference between our cases," Joe replied, wondering how
this girl could care anything for his life-story. "I was the oldest
child of our family. My father came out here on account of