the Lord
Almighty into partnership to work a miracle. Otherwise this creeping up
from behind and beyond the thing will be a never-ending job of time and
money and labor. You'll never catch up with it. It's just too
everlastingly big, that's all. You'll be gray-bearded, and bald-headed,
and deaf, and dim-sighted before you are through."

"I will not," Joe declared, doggedly. "And I've already told you that
I've always taken the Lord Almighty into partnership, or I'd have been a
derelict on a sea of sand lang syne."

"Joe, your faith in the Lord and faith in the prairies might move
mountains, but they haven't yet moved the desert."

"Not entirely," Joe replied, "but if I do my part, who knows what
Providence may do?"

As he sat there in the hope and strength of his youth, something in Joe
Thomson's expectant face brought a pang to the man beside him.

"Joe, your lease will soon expire. I said to you three years ago that
women are shiftier than blowouts. You didn't believe me, but it's the
truth."

"Naturally the Macpherson Mortgage Company must acquire much knowledge
of such things in the development of their business," Joe responded,
jokingly. "Little Thelma Ekblad on the claim above mine has helped to
pay off the mortgage your company held, and sent herself to the
university, working in the harvest-fields and at the hay-baler to do it.
Thelma never seemed shifty to me. She's a solid little rock of a woman
who never flinches."

"I'll except Thelma. You ought--" But York went no further, for he knew
Joe's spirit would not respond to his thought, and he had no business
to be thinking, anyhow. He had known Joe Thomson from childhood. He
admired Jerry Swaim greatly for what she had been doing, but he knew
much of the Philadelphia end of the game, and his heart ached for the
young Westerner, who, he believed, had shouldered a stupendous, tragical
burden for the sake of a heart-longing only a strong nature like Joe's
could know.

"By the way, Jerry Swaim's aunt, back East, is in a bad way and may die
at any time, but she will never forgive Jerry to the point of
inheritance. I happen to be in the old lady's confidence that far."

"You are a social Atlas, York," Joe declared. "You hold the world on
your shoulders. But what you say doesn't interest me at all. So don't
prejudge any of us, maid or man."

"And don't you let your bloomin' self-confidence and ability to work
half-miracles be your undoing. A house builded