Bradley to-day--want 'o go 'long?"

"I can't this mornin'. Perhaps I'll come over after dinner and walk home
with you."

"I think you'll like Mrs. Bradley. She's got the purtiest little baby
you ever saw." He did not look at her as he slung his pick and shovel on
his shoulder. "Well, I'll tell her you'll be over about three o'clock."

"All right, tell her. Mebbe I'll come and mebbe I won't," she answered,
ungraciously.

All that forenoon she went about her little cabin moodily, or sat
silently by the open door watching the buffalo birds or larks as they
came up about the barn for food. The green plain was all a-shimmer with
pleasant heat. The plover, nesting in the grass, were nearly ready to
bring forth their young--and the mother fox had already begun to lead
her litter out upon the sunny hillside; only this childless woman seemed
unhappy--sad.

As she came to the cabin of the Bradleys, Willard, sunk to his topknot
in the ground, was burrowing like a badger in the clay, quite oblivious
to the world above him. Some one was singing in the cabin, and,
approaching the door, Blanche saw a picture which thrilled her with a
strange, hungry, envious passion.

A young woman was seated in the tiny room with her back to the door,
her hand on a cradle, and as she rocked she sang softly. She was a plain
little woman, the cradle was cheap and common, and her singing was only
a monotonous chant; but the scene had a sort of sublimity--it was so
old, so typical, and so beautiful.

The woman without the threshold stood for a long time staring straight
before her, then turned and walked away homeward--past the weary,
patient, heroic man toiling deep in the earth for her sake--leaving him
without a glance or a word.

"You didn't get over to Mrs. Bradley's this afternoon, then?" Burke
said, at supper.

"No," she replied, shortly, "I had some sewin' to do."

"Wal, go to-morrow. That's an awfully cute little chap--that baby," he
went on, after a little. "Mrs. Bradley let him set on my knee to-day."
Then he sighed. "I wisht we had one like 'im, Blanche." After a pause,
he said, "Mebbe God will send one some day."

She didn't appear to hear, and her face was dark with passion.

IV

AUGUST

Now the settlers began to long for rain. Day after day vast clouds rose
above the horizon, swift and portentous, domed like aerial mountains,
only to pass with a swoop like the flight of silent, great eagles,
followed by a traili