strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.

Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
tide of longing in her heart.

As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "_There he is!_"

Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.

Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.

"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
forgot all their doubts and scruples--overpowered by the sense of each
other's nearness.

She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
bringing slowly down the step.

Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."

Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
over-peering peaks.

"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.

"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
'mobile we've heard so much about?"

"Coming by fast freight."

"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
come as excess baggage."

It was cool, delicious green dusk--not dark--with a small sickle of moon
in the west, and as they drove up the