d at her
laughingly. He had on a straw hat lined with green calico, and his
trousers were of blue jeans, held up by "galluses" of the same; but he
was a handsome fellow, with sound white teeth and thick curling locks.

"I don't know as a greed for gold is any worse than a greed for corn,"
he said, trying to curb his voice into seriousness.

"But corn is useful--it is food--and, besides, you work for it." Marg'et
Ann pushed her sunbonnet back and looked at him anxiously.

"Well, I've planted a good deal more corn than I expect to eat this
year, and I was calculating to sell some of it for gold,--you wouldn't
think that was wrong, would you, Marg'et Ann?"

"No, of course not; but some one will eat it,--it's useful," maintained
the girl earnestly.

"I haven't found anything more useful than money yet," persisted the
young man good-naturedly; "but if I come home from California with two
or three bags full of gold, I'll buy up a township and raise corn by the
wholesale,--that'll make it all right, won't it?"

Marg'et Ann laughed in spite of herself.

"You're such a case, Lloyd," she said, not without a note of admiration
in her reproof.

When it came to the parting there was little said. Marg'et Ann hushed
her lover's assurances with her own, given amid blinding tears.

"I'll be just the same, Lloyd, no matter what happens, but I can't let
you make any promises; it wouldn't be right. I can't expect you to wait
for me. You must do whatever seems right to you; but there won't be any
harm in my loving you,--at least as long as you don't care for anybody
else."

The young man said what a young man usually says when he is looking into
trustful brown eyes, filled with tears he has caused and cannot prevent,
and at the moment, in the sharp pain of parting, the words of one were
not more or less sincere than those of the other.

* * * * *

The years that followed moved slowly, weighted as they were with hard
work and monotony for Marg'et Ann, and by the time the voice of the corn
had changed three times from the soft whispering of spring to the hoarse
rustling of autumn, she felt herself old and tired.

There had been letters and messages and rumors, more or less reliable,
repeated at huskings and quiltings, to keep her informed of the fortunes
of those who had crossed the plains, but her own letters from Lloyd had
been few and unsatisfactory. She could not complain of this strict
compl