ble.

Her housewife's instincts rose jubilant as the shell took form, and she
sang to herself as she stitched her flour sacks together for towels.
No princess decked her palace with a blither spirit. All the little
treasures that had not been jettisoned in the last stern march across
the desert came from their hiding places for the adornment of the first
home of her married life. The square of mirror stood on the shelf near
the door where the light could fall on it, and the French gilt clock
that had been her mother's ticked beside it. The men laughed as she
set out on the table the silver mug of her baby days and a two-handled
tankard bearing on its side a worn coat of arms, a heritage from the
adventurous Poutrincourt, a drop of whose blood had given boldness and
courage to hers.

It was her home--very different from the home she had dreamed of--but
so was her life different from the life she and her father had planned
together in the dead days of the trail. She delighted in it, gloated
over it. Long before the day of installation she moved in her
primitive furnishings, disposed the few pans with an eye to their
effect as other brides arrange their silver and crystal, hung her
flour-sack towels on the pegs with as careful a hand as though they had
been tapestries, and folded her clothes neat and seemly in her father's
chest. Then came a night when the air was sharp, and they kindled the
first fire in the wide chimney mouth. It leaped exultant, revealing
the mud-filled cracks, playing on the pans, and licking the bosses of
the old tankard. The hearthstone shone red with its light, and they
sat drawn back on the seats of pine looking into its roaring
depths--housed, sheltered, cozily content. When Glen and Bella retired
to their tent a new romance seemed to have budded in the girl's heart.
It was her bridal night--beneath a roof, beside a hearth, with a door
to close against the world, and shut her away with her lover.

In these days she had many secret conferrings with Bella. They kept
their heads together and whispered, and Bella crooned and fussed over
her and pushed the men into the background in a masterful, aggressive
manner. Susan knew now what had waked the nest-building instinct. The
knowledge came with a thrilling, frightened joy. She sat apart
adjusting herself to the new outlook, sometimes fearful, then uplifted
in a rapt, still elation. All the charm she had once held over the
hearts of men