e his effort at
self-control. "Wade as a man and a Westerner doesn't expect to be fed on
pap, you know, any more than I do. May the best man win, that's the way
of it."

Helen thought this over for a moment.

"Perhaps I'd better go out there with you, after all," she remarked,
half in jest.

Then the Senator thought that over for a moment and left the room.

Next day Helen received a package by mail which proved to contain a
dozen clear photographs of Crawling Water and its neighborhood.

First of all, as though Moran thought it most important, was a snapshot
of himself, which had been taken, so he wrote on the back of the print,
by an obliging cowboy. The girl's face was a study in amused scorn as
she looked at the photograph, for which Moran has posed with a cigar in
his mouth, his hands in his pockets.

Then there were a number of views of the town itself; of its main
street, its hotel, its dance-hall, and of "some of the boys" in various
poses of photographic self-consciousness. There were also pictures of
the marvelously beautiful countryside, but as she neared the end of
them, Helen was disappointed to find none of Wade. "Of course, he
wouldn't send me one of _him_," she said petulantly to herself, and she
was rapidly running through the remaining prints only to pause suddenly
at the very last, while a rosy tide flooded her face and neck.

The little photograph showed a tall, handsome, vigorous looking man, in
the garb of a cattleman, half turned in his saddle, with one hand
resting on his pony's flank. The man was Wade. With his other hand, he
was pointing ahead, apparently for the benefit of a girl--a very good
looking girl whose fine head was thrown back, as the wind blew her hair
into pretty disorder.

Helen Rexhill had not hitherto experienced real jealousy, but this
little photograph excited it. In the highly actinic light of Crawling
Water at noon the camera had done its work well, and the figures of the
two stood out from the distant background with stereoscopic clearness.
Wade was smiling at the girl, who seemed to be laughing back at him,
although her face in the picture was partially turned away, so that
Helen got only an impression of charm. But the impression was enough to
rouse her jealousy.

On the back of the print, Moran had written:

"A surprise picture of Gordon Wade and our new fellow-townswoman, Miss
Dorothy Purnell, whose beauty and general attractiveness have made her
the idol o