-she was
to join in honoring him. Jeff was the whole hub about which her
happiness revolved.

He was pained. He was angry. And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's
dark beauty haunted him. He admitted it--her beauty. And for all his
disquiet, his bitter feeling, he found it impossible to blame the man.

Yes, for all his exasperation. For all he regarded Jeff as a "fool
man," he was just enough to remember that Nan was his own little
daughter, a pretty prairie girl, with nothing of the showy attraction
of this city woman. Then Jeff's attitude toward her. It had never
been more than the sheerest friendliness. He reflected bitterly, even,
that they might have been simply brother and sister. While the dream
of his life was some day to be able to pour out the wealth he was
storing up into the out-stretched palms of their children.

Well, it was a dream. And now it had come tumbling about his feet, and
it almost looked to him as if poor little Nan's heart was to be buried
beneath the debris.

He flung his evening suit, which Nan had so much admired, into the
gaping jaws of a large leather grip, with a disregard that more than
illustrated his feelings. Then he strove to close the grip tucking in
the projecting oddments of silk-lined cloth without the least
consideration for their well-being. He felt he never wanted to wear
such things again, never wanted even to see them. He and Nan belonged
to the prairie, not to a city. That was good enough for them. What
was the use----?

But his reflections were interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Jeff
himself. Bud looked up as the door was unceremoniously thrust open,
and his regard was quite unshaken by the depths of his feelings. It
displayed a mute question, however.

Jeff began at once.

"I saw the light through your transom, Bud, so I just came right in."

Jeff was a shade paler than usual. There was a look of some doubt in
his blue eyes. And his manner hinted at a decision taken. A decision
that had not been arrived at without some considerable exercise of mind.

Slowly, as he regarded him, all Bud's bitterness subsided. If Nan were
his daughter, this man was almost a son to him.

"Say, old friend, I'm--I'm not going back home with you to-morrow,"
Jeff went on. He stirred with a suggestion of nervousness, and then
flung himself upon the old man's littered-up bed. "I just can't, an'
that's a fact. I want to stop around here for a while. I got t