me you need never worry about the question of bread or
rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'--Which road now?"

She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.

The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'--whether you come to
me or not."

All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
far, far behind her.

Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
devils," he admitted--"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
wouldn't go to school--not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
well--and we fished and played ball and went to the circus--" He
chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."

Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"

"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."

"I like it--but I'd like to see the rest of the country."

"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."

She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once--went on one of
these excursion tickets."

"How did you like it there?"

"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
worst ever--it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
door of the big places."

"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush--if you will."

Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
such hotels--There's our ranch."

"Shy as a coyote,