cook?"

"I make a specialty of salads and sorbets," smiled Kate. "I guess
I could roast meat and make bread; but circumstances have not yet
compelled me to do it. But I've a theory that an American woman can do
anything she puts her mind to."

The man laughed out loud,--a laugh quite out of proportion to the mild
good humor of the remark; but it was evident that he could no longer
conceal his delight at this companionship.

"How about raisin' flowers?" he asked. "Are you strong on that?"

"I've only to look at a plant to make it grow," Kate cried, with
enthusiasm. "When my friends are in despair over a plant, they bring it
to me, and I just pet it a little, and it brightens up. I've the most
wonderful fernery you ever saw. It's green, summer and winter. Hundreds
of people stop and look up at it, it is so green and enticing, there
above the city streets."

"What city?"

"Philadelphia."

"Mother's jest that way. She has a garden of roses. And the
mignonette--"

But he broke off suddenly, and sat once more staring before him.

"But not a damned thing," he added, with poetic pensiveness, "would grow
in that gulch."

"Why did you stay there so long?" asked Kate, after a little pause in
which she managed to regain her waning courage.

"Bad luck. You never see a place with so many false leads. To-day you'd
get a streak that looked big. To-morrow you'd find it a pocket. One
night I'd go t' bed with my heart goin' like a race-horse. Next night
it would be ploddin' along like a winded burro. Don't know what made
me stick t' it. It was hot there, too! And cold! Always roastin' ur
freezin'. It'd been different if I'd had any one t' help me stand it.
But th' men were always findin' fault. They blamed me fur everythin'.
I used t' lie awake at night an' hear 'em talkin' me over. It made me
lonesome, I tell you! Thar wasn't no one! Mother used t' write. But
I never told her th' truth. She ain't a suspicion of what I've been
a-goin' through."

Kate sat and looked at him in silence. His face was seamed, though
far from old. His body was awkward, but impressed her with a sense of
magnificent strength.

"I couldn't ask no woman t' share my hard times," he resumed after a
time. "I always said when I got a woman, it was goin' t' be t' make her
happy. It wer'n't t' be t' ask her t' drudge."

There was another silence. This man out of the solitude seemed to
be elated past expression at his new companionship. He looked with