but it occupied one side of
the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the window Robin placed the
green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's writing materials. Along
the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the fashion in miners'
cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft inner cornhusk, and
a pillow from the other room, and blankets from the one tiny closet,
the couch looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats
made from plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portiere, woven
from the same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly
despised.

Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the
room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin
was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that
they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory
blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means
unattractive.

Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and she
scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or invented
furniture, until inside and out their little domain was as perfect as
they could make it.

Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they
dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the
turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam
harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and
corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to
do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality.

Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he could
sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and the
paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment,
then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How
when his friends got rich they first built a beautiful house, and then
went abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like
it?"

The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it, and
he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the
expedition.

Robin baked and prepared as well as she could.

"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized, as
she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals over
it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and learned
how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and,"