ures were
placed--her books, and paintings and photographs, her piano, the
Crouched Venus, the chafing-dish and all its glittering accessories.
Already, in addition to her own wild-animal skins, were those of deer
and coyote and one mountain-lion which Daylight had killed. The
tanning he had done himself, slowly and laboriously, in frontier
fashion.

He handed the match to Dede, who struck it and lighted the fire. The
crisp manzanita wood crackled as the flames leaped up and assailed the
dry bark of the larger logs. Then she leaned in the shelter of her
husband's arm, and the three stood and looked in breathless suspense.
When Ferguson gave judgment, it was with beaming face and extended hand.

"She draws! By crickey, she draws!" he cried.

He shook Daylight's hand ecstatically, and Daylight shook his with
equal fervor, and, bending, kissed Dede on the lips. They were as
exultant over the success of their simple handiwork as any great
captain at astonishing victory. In Ferguson's eyes was actually a
suspicious moisture while the woman pressed even more closely against
the man whose achievement it was. He caught her up suddenly in his
arms and whirled her away to the piano, crying out: "Come on, Dede! The
Gloria! The Gloria!"

And while the flames in the fireplace that worked, the triumphant
strains of the Twelfth Mass rolled forth.

CHAPTER XXVI

Daylight had made no assertion of total abstinence though he had not
taken a drink for months after the day he resolved to let his business
go to smash. Soon he proved himself strong enough to dare to take a
drink without taking a second. On the other hand, with his coming to
live in the country, had passed all desire and need for drink. He felt
no yearning for it, and even forgot that it existed. Yet he refused to
be afraid of it, and in town, on occasion, when invited by the
storekeeper, would reply: "All right, son. If my taking a drink will
make you happy here goes. Whiskey for mine."

But such a drink began no desire for a second. It made no impression.
He was too profoundly strong to be affected by a thimbleful. As he had
prophesied to Dede, Burning Daylight, the city financier, had died a
quick death on the ranch, and his younger brother, the Daylight from
Alaska, had taken his place. The threatened inundation of fat had
subsided, and all his old-time Indian leanness and of muscle had
returned. So, likewise, did the old slight hollows in his ch