ack.

"Something is wrong there, but it is deeper than we can reach now,"
Jerry said. "Maybe we can help the old fellow if he is tempted, and
shield him if he is wronged."

How fair the face, and soft and clear the voice! It made Joe Thomson's
own face harden to hide a feeling he would not let reveal itself.

As he watched the girl's receding car he resolved anew to conquer that
formless enemy of sand and to reclaim for her her lost kingdom in
Kansas. His reward? That must come in its own time. Ponk was out of the
running. York was still a proposition. As for all that stuff of York's
about some Eastern fellow, Joe would not believe it.

And the girl driving swiftly homeward thought only of the romance of Joe
and Thelma, if she thought of them at all--for she was Lesa Swaim's
child still--and mainly and absorbedly she thought of her father's wish
to be fulfilled in her.

So the glorious Kansas autumn brought to Jerry Swaim all of its beauty,
in its soft air, its opal skies, its gold-and-brown-and-lavender
landscapes, its calm serenity. And under its benediction this girl of
luxurious, idle, purposeless days in sunny "Eden" on the Winnowoc was
beginning a larger existence in New Eden by the Sage Brush, and through
the warp and woof of that existence one name was all unconsciously woven
large--JOE.

XV

DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK

For three years the seasons sped by, soft-footed and swift, and the
third June-time came smiling up the Sage Brush Valley. Many changes had
marked the passing of these seasons. Ranches had extended their
cultivated acres; trees spread a wider shade; a newly settled addition
had extended the boundaries of New Eden; and a new factory and a
high-school building for vocational training marked the progress of the
town. Budding youth had blossomed into manhood and womanhood and the
cemetery had gathered in its toll. Three years, however, had marked
little outward change in the young Eastern girl who stayed by her choice
of the Sage Brush country for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer.
She had flung all of her young energy into the dull routine of teaching
mathematics; romance had given place to reality; idleness and careless
dependence to regulated effort and carefully computed expenditures; gay
social interests to the companionship of lesser opportunities, but
broader vision. However, these things came at a sacrifice. When the
newness wore away from her work, Jerry's ho