e
and again. Even Joan no longer pattered about the house, and when they
came down out of the mountains they never heard her shrill laughter. She
sat cross-legged by the hearth in her old place during the evenings with
her chin resting on one hand and her eyes fixed wistfully upon the fire;
and sometimes they found her on the little hillock behind the house,
from the top of which she could view every approach to the cabin. Of Dan
and even of Black Bart, her playmate she soon learned not to speak,
for the mention of them made her mother shrink and whiten. Indeed, the
saddest thing in that house was the quiet in which the child waited,
waited, waited, and never spoke.

"She ain't more'n a baby," said Buck Daniels, "and you can leave it to
time to make her forget."

"But," growled Lee Haines, "Kate isn't a baby. Buck, it drives me damn
near crazy to see her fade this way."

"Now you lay to this," answered Buck. "She'll pull through. She'll never
forget, maybe, but she'll go on livin' for the sake of the kid."

"You know a hell of a lot about women, don't you?" said Haines.

"I know enough, son," nodded Buck.

He had, in fact, reduced women to a few distinct categories, and he
only waited to place a girl in her particular class before he felt quite
intimate acquaintance with her entire mind and soul.

"It'll kill her," pronounced Lee Haines. "Why, she's like a flower,
Buck, and sorrow will cut her off at the root. Think of a girl like that
thrown away in these damned deserts! It makes me sick--sick! She ought
to have nothing but velvet to touch--nothing but a millionaire for a
husband, and never a worry in her life." He grew excited. "But here's
the flower thrown away and the heel crushing it without mercy."

Buck Daniels regarded him with pity.

"I feel kind of sorry for you, Lee, when I hear you talk about girls. No
wonder they make a fool of you. A flower crushed under the foot, eh? You
just listen to me, my boy. You and me figure to be pretty hard, don't
we? Well, soft pine stacked up agin' quartzite, is what we are compared
to Kate."

Lee Haines gaped at him, too astonished to be angry. He suggested
softening of the brain to Buck, but the latter waved aside the
implications.

"Now, supposin' Kate was one of these dark girls with eyes like black
diamonds and a lot of snap and zip to her. If she was like that I s'pose
you'd figure her to forget all about Dan inside of a month--and maybe
marry you?"

"You