ved_
before you died, anyhow, and I'm going to do the same. Uncle Cornie died
before he ever really lived."

Jerry stretched out her hands to the one good-by in "Eden" coming to her
from these silent ripples of dewy green sod. Then youth and the June
morning and the lure of adventure into new lands came with their triple
strength to buoy her up to do and dare. Behind her were her lover to
be--for Eugene must love her--her home ties, luxury, dependent
inactivity. Before her lay the very ends of the earth, the Kansas end
especially. The spirit of Sir Galahad, of Robinson Crusoe, of Don
Quixote, combined with the spirit of a self-willed, inexperienced girl,
but dimly conscious yet of what lay back of her determination to go
forth--_because she wanted to go_.

Chicago and Kansas City offered easy ports for clearing. And the Kaw
Valley, unrolling its broad acres along the way, gave larger promise
than Jerry had yet dared to dream of for the New Eden farther west. The
train service, after the manner of a Pacific Coast limited, had been
perfect in every appointment. And then--this junction episode.

Two eternity-long hours before the Sage Brush branch could take her to
New Eden were almost ended.

"It's not so terrifying, after all." Jerry was beginning to "see things
again." "It's all in the game--and I am going to be as 'game' as the
thing I am playing. Things always come round all right for me. _They
must._"

The square white chin was very much a family feature just now. And the
shapely hands had no hint of weakness in their grip on the iron arms of
the station seat.

The door which the wind had slammed shut was slammed open again as three
prospective passengers for the Sage Brush train slammed through it laden
with luggage. At the same time the sealed-up ticket-window flew open,
showing the red, grinning face of the tick-tick man behind its iron
bars. If Jerry had never paid the slightest heed to the bunch of grubs
on the Winnowoc branch, except as they kept down the ventilation, or
crowded their odors of Limburger on her offended senses, the Sage Brush
grubs were a thousandfold less worthy of her consideration. As the
three crowded to the ticket-window, laughing among themselves, she
stared through the doorway, unconsciously reading the names on the cars
of a freight-train slowly heaving down alongside the station. Who
invented freight-cars, anyhow? The most uninteresting and inartistic
thing ever put on wheels by