on the sand may fall,
where one built on gold dust may stand firm," York retorted.

"Do you believe your own words?" Joe asked, rising to his feet.

"The point is for you to believe them, whether I do or not," York
answered, as Joe disappeared through the doorway.

"Why, in the name of fitness, can't that fellow fall in love with that
little Thelma Ekblad, a girl who knows what sacrifice on the Sage Brush
means and who has a grip on the real values of life? Oh, well, just to
watch the crowd run awry ought to be entertainment enough for a bachelor
like myself," York thought, as he sat staring after Joe. "I've lived to
see a few half-miracles myself in the last decade. Anybody whose lot is
cast in western Kansas can see as many of them as the old Santa Fe Trail
bull-whackers saw of mirages in the awful 'fifties. There's a lot of
reclaiming being done on the Sage Brush, even if that struggle of Joe's
with the blowout is a failure. Thelma Ekblad in her splendid victory
over ignorance, carrying a university degree; Stellar Bahrr"--York
smiled, "Ponk, who would put a flourish after his name if he were
signing his own death-warrant, the little hero of a hundred knocks,
living above everything but his funny little strut, and he's getting
over that a bit; old Fishing Teddy, brave old soul, down in his old
shack alone; Jerry, with her luxurious laziness and doubt in God and a
hereafter--all winning slowly to better things, maybe; but as to sand
and Joe--

"'Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?' You'll never do it, Joe,
never, and you'll never win the goal you've set your heart on. Poor
fellow!"

That night, on the silent porch alone, York finished the battle he had
begun on the evening after he and Jerry had called on Stella Bahrr.

"It's the artist bank clerk against the field, and we'll none of us bat
above his average. Good night, old moon, and good night, York, to what
can't be."

He waved a hand at the dying light in the west, and a dying hope, and
went inside.

XVI

A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN"

Cornelius Darby had lain in his beautifully decorated grave for three
years, and a graceful white shaft pointing heavenward amid the
shrubbery had become a landmark for the bunch of grubs who rode the
Winnowoc local.

"Must be getting close to the deppo. Yonder is old Corn Darby's
gravestone over on the bluff," they would say, as the train chuffed up
out of the valley on either side of the station. That was all