and pluck her and wear her on
his heart. There were none to gainsay him. No mortal lived who dared
defend her or say nay.

Why waste his life, then, in dreams and fantasies, in regrets, and
hopings, when here lay a glowing, breathing, living reality?

He reached out his hand and caught hers in a firm, compelling grasp. A
splendid creature sent to comfort him. A creature blown by the winds
of heaven to his threshold. A dear defenceless thing without home or
kindred, unprotected, uncared of, weak and in need of affection, in
dire need of love.

Helpless, unshielded, unguarded ... unprotected ... unguarded ...
uncared for....

Seth frowned. The wind had wafted itself into his brain again. He was
growing dazed.

He caught his hand away from Cyclona's. He thrust his fingers through
his hair. He pressed them over his eyes.

These strange words persisted in piling themselves solidly between him
and his desire. They formed a barrier stronger than walls of brick or
mortar.

Unprotected, defenceless, unguarded, uncared for, this girl who had
rocked his child and Celia's in her arms, who had held him close to
the warmth of her young bosom. This beautiful unprotected girl who had
tenderly closed the eyes of his child!

The fragile barrier built by unseen hands was cloud-high now.

If the wraith of Cyclona had occupied the chair there by his side she
could scarcely have been further removed from his embrace.

Humbly Seth bent over the small brown hand.

Reverently he kissed away the tear.

CHAPTER XVIII.

[Illustration]

But the moons waxed and waned and the months lapsed into years and
Seth grew hopeless, more and more hopeless, so hopeless that at last
he began to lose faith in the Magic City, and to fear for the
realization of his fantastic will-o'-the-wisp of a beautiful house.

Would the Wise Men never come out of the East to buy up his land and
build that magnificent city of his dreams at the forks of the river
where the cyclones never came, so that he could build his beautiful
house for Celia? Or would they always stop just short of it?

Already that little town on the edge of the State called Kansas City
because it was in Missouri, had boomed itself into a city and, being
just outside the cyclone belt, had not been blown away. In spite of
the fact that it had been set high on a hill it had not been blown
away.

The Wise Men had built that town.

Also, there was another town they had built wit