sorbing feelings
consuming her.

"I tell you, Effie, I was scared--plumb scared when I saw what it was,"
Bob Whitstone ended up. "Guess we've known long enough the whole
blamed countryside is haunted by cattle rustlers, but--that's the first
time I've seen 'em, and I guess it's the first time any one's seen 'em
at work. Say, I'm not yearning for the experience again."

But Effie had no interest beyond his story. His feelings on the matter
of his experience were of no concern whatever at the moment. There
were other things in her mind, things of far greater import. She
returned to the rocker chair, which was the luxury of their home, and
sat down. There was one thing only in Bob's story which mattered to
her just now.

"Ten thousand dollars," she murmured. "_Ten thousand_! It's
a--fortune."

Bob moved across to a rough shelf nailed upon the wall and picked up a
pipe.

"A bit limited," he observed contemptuously, as poured some tobacco
dust into the bowl.

"I was thinking of--ourselves."

The man ceased his operation to gaze swiftly down upon the gently
swaying figure in the chair.

"What d'you mean, Effie?" he demanded sharply.

The girl's steady eyes were slowly raised in answer to the challenging
tone. They met her husband's without a shadow of hesitation.

"It sounds like a fortune to me, who have not handled a dollar that I
could spend without careful thought--for two years," she declared with
warmth.

Bob completed the filling of his pipe. He did not answer for a few
moments, but occupied himself by lighting it with a reeking sulphur
match.

"That's a pretty hard remark," he said at last, emitting heavy clouds
of smoke between his words.

"Is it? But--it's just plain facts."

"I s'pose it is."

The girl had permitted her gaze to wander. It passed from her
husband's face to the deplorable surroundings which she had almost
grown accustomed to, but which now stood out in her mind with an added
sense of hopelessness. The lime-wash over the cracked and broken
plaster which filled the gaps between the logs of the walls. The
miserable furnishing, much of it of purely home manufacture, thrown up
into hideous relief by the few tasteful knickknacks which had been
wedding presents from her intimate friends and relatives in the east.
The earthen floor, beaten hard and kept scrupulously swept by her own
hands. The cook-stove in the corner, with its ill-set stovepipe
passing out of a hole in