u ought to
buy his pictures. I'm sure you'll want some of those things he has. Of
course that's the better way. It will let him feel independent. There,
it's fixed. It was simple, after all." She flashed him a look of
gratitude. "You're a help after all, dear, when you choose to be."

"But--one moment, my babe! Perhaps after listening to my advice so
meekly you'll let the poor chap say a word for himself. Perhaps he'd
rather stay right here in God's own country if he eats and sleeps well
now."

"Please, please, let's not be so--so foody! Of course he wants to go!"

"But what in Heaven's name would you ever have done without my help,
poor mindless child that you are?"

But she was oblivious to this subtlety.

"Yes, dear, you're always a comfort. We'll ride over this afternoon and
tell him he's to go. It will be a fine thing to do--he's so promising."

"Look here, Nell"--he glanced at her shrewdly--"is this to be his picnic
or yours?"

She burned with a little inner rage to feel her cheeks redden, but the
black fringe of her eyes did not fall before him.

"We'll ride over after luncheon," she repeated, "and I do wish,
Clarence, that you'd shave and wear a collar or a stock, and throw that
unspeakable coat away, and have your boots cleaned, and send for some
cigars."

He looked complacently down over the objectionable attire, pulled
sputteringly at the condemned pipe, then grinned at her.

"Say, Sis, if it's going to be _that_ much fun for you, I'll rope and
throw him, and send him on tied if he acts rough."

Late that evening the two inmates of the lake cabin sat before the big
fireplace in the studio to talk of a wondrous thing. They had survived
the most exciting half day in the life of either, and the atmosphere of
the room was still electrical with echoes of the big event. Through
their supper Ewing, unable to eat, had sat staring afar, helpless in the
rush of the current, inert as a bowlder in the bed of a mountain stream.
He, so long at rest, was to be swept down from the peace of his hill
nook to the ocean, to life itself. It was a thing to leave one aghast
with a consternation that was somehow joyous. Since supper he had stared
into the fire in dumb surrender to the flood, with intervals of dazed
floor-pacing, in which he tried to foresee his course.

Ben Crider, submerged by the waters of the same cloudburst, was giving
stouter battle to the current. His face drawn to more than its wonted
dejection