t he
approve of her?

A reassuring warmth came up to her face and neck. Yes, she believed he
did. His eyes looked it when he thought she was not noticing.

[Illustration: Holy Joe shanghaies Imogene's ranchmen and discovers
Percy--a willing ally.]

She reached down and picked up a stick and threw it with a quick,
impulsive gesture into the water and watched it float on down the
ditch. Yes, she was pretty sure Rogeen liked her--but how much? Oh,
well--she took a dozen girlish skips along the path, her hair flying
about her face, and her heart dancing with the early sun on the green
fields before her and the brown desert beyond--oh, well, time would
tell.

"Daddy," she had come up to where the little bald-headed man was
plowing--throwing up the ridges, "don't you like spring?"

The ex-professor stopped the team, looked at her through his glasses,
then glanced around the field at the grass and weeds and early plants
that were up.

"I believe," he said, mildly, "that we are approaching the vernal
equinox. But I had not observed before the gradual unfoldment of
vegetation which we have come to associate in our minds with spring."

"Oh, daddy, daddy," she laughed deliciously, and leaned over the handle
of the plow and pulled his ear. "You funny, funny man. Why, it's
spring, it's spring! Don't you feel it in your bones? Don't you love
the whole world and everybody?"

Professor Chandler seriously contemplated the skyline, where the
sunlight showed red on the distant buttes. "I should say, daughter,
that it does give one a feeling of kinship with nature. I fancy the
early Greeks felt it."

"I fancy they did," said Imogene, "especially if they were in love."

"In love?" The professor brought his spectacles around to his daughter
questioningly.

"With everything," she said, laughing. "Daddy, I'm awfully glad we are
back to the soil--instead of back to the Greeks."

"I am not discontent with our environment." And the little professor
plowed on. She smiled maternally at his back. And then two swift
tears sprang to her eyes. Tender tears.

"Dear old daddy. It has been good for him. He would have dried up and
blown away in that little old college."

Returning to the shack she was still bareheaded. She loved the feel of
the sun, and the few freckles it brought only added a piquancy to her
face.

"I wonder if he"--she meant Rogeen--"will make it go this year. I hope
he has a good crop. It makes