ng her broad, flat foot uncompromisingly upon
the shoulder of the shovel and sending it deep into the yellow soil.
She worked slowly and methodically and steadily, just as she did
everything else. When she had dug down as deep as she could and still
manage to climb out, and had the hole wide enough and long enough, she
got awkwardly to the grassy surface and sat for a long while upon a
rock, staring dumbly at the gaunt, brown hills across the river.

She returned to the cabin at last, and with the manner of one who
dreads doing what must be done, she went in where Jase lay stiff and
cold under the blankets.

Early that afternoon, Marthy went staggering up the slope, wheeling
Jase's body before her on the creaky, home-made wheelbarrow. In the
same harsh, primitive manner in which they both had lived, Marthy
buried her dead. And though in life she had given him few words save
in command or upbraiding, with never a hint of love to sweeten the days
for either, yet she went whimpering away from that grave. She broke
off three branches of precious peach blossoms and carried them up the
slope. She stuck them upright in the lumpy soil over Jase's head and
stood there a long while with tear-streaked face, staring down at the
grave and at the nodding pink blossoms.

Billy Louise rode singing down the rocky trail through the deep, narrow
gorge, to where the hawthorn and choke-cherries hid the opening to the
cove. Just on the edge of the thickest fringe, she pulled up and broke
off tender branches of cherry bloom, then went on, still singing softly
to herself because the air was sweet with spring odors, the sunshine
lay a fresh yellow upon the land, and because the joy of life was in
her blood and, like the birds, she had no other means of expression at
hand. Blue's feet sank to the fetlocks in the rich, black soil of the
little meadow that lay smooth to the tumbling sweep of the river behind
its own little willow fringe. His ears perked forward, his eyes
rolling watchfully for strange sights and sounds, he stepped softly
forward, ready to wheel at the slightest alarm and gallop back up the
gorge to more familiar ground. It was long since Billy Louise had
turned his head down the rocky trail, and Blue liked little the gloom
of the gorge and the sudden change to soft, black soil that stopped
just short of being boggy in the wet places. Where the trail led into
a marshy crossing of the big, irrigating ditch that brought