d not break
her; sorrow would only make her fineness finer. There was a girl to stand
up beside a man!

He had not thought of it before--perhaps he had been too melancholy and
bitter over his failure to take by storm the community where he had
tried to make his start--but he believed that he realized that moment
what he had needed all along. If, amid the contempt and indifference of
the successful, he'd had some incentive besides his own ambition to
struggle for all this time, some splendid, strong-handed woman to stand
up in his gloom like the Goddess of Liberty offering an ultimate reward
to the poor devils who have won their way to her feet across the bitter
seas from hopeless lands, he might have stuck to it back there and won
in the end.

"That's what I've needed," said he aloud, rising abruptly.

She looked up at him quickly.

"I've needed somebody's sympathy, somebody's sarcasm, somebody's soft
hand--which could be correctional on occasion--and somebody's
heart-interest all along," he declared, standing before her dramatically
and flinging out his hands in the strong feeling of his declaration.
"I've been lonely; I've been morose. I've needed a woman like you!"

Without sign of perturbation or offense, Agnes rose and laid her hand
gently upon his arm.

"I think, Dr. Slavens," she suggested, "we'd better be going back to
camp."

They walked the mile back to camp with few words between them. The
blatant noises of Comanche grew as they drew nearer.

The dance was still in progress; the others had not returned to camp.

"Do you care to sit out here and wait for them?" he asked as they
stopped before the tent.

"I think I'll go to bed," she answered. "I'm tired."

"I'll stand sentry," he offered.

She thanked him, and started to go in. At the door she paused, went back
to him, and placed her hand in her soothing, placid way upon his arm
again.

"You'll fight out the good fight here," said she, "for this is a country
that's got breathing-room in it."

She looked up into his face a bit wistfully, he thought, as if there
were more in her heart than she had spoken. "You'll win here--I know
you'll win."

He reached out to put his arm about her, drawn by the same warm
attraction that had pulled the words from him at the riverside. The
action was that of a man reaching out to lean his weary weight upon some
familiar object, and there was something of old habit in it, as if he
had been doing it always.