, trustful.

"I believe you," she said.

She yielded to his arms. Her head fell back upon his shoulder and her
look lifted to his blissfully. When he kissed her a thrill of passionate
desire answered, as when on that fragrant evening in the canon he first
had fiercely pressed her lips. This was happiness--happiness. If it
could but last forever!

"And my love is yours, too, Lee," she exclaimed, so earnestly that he
felt his heart quiver. "I want to be happy; I want to be loved; I
don't want to live a life of just dreary commonplaceness, alone,
uncared for, with no outlook, with no prospect of joys. I want the
most there is in happiness--every girl wants that; and this monotonous
existence has been robbing me, stifling me, until sometimes I've been
wild enough to leap off a high rock. But now!"

Bryant's arms went closer about her.

"It shall be different now," he murmured.

"Yes, yes; it must, it shall. There's no sense in people not being
happy when the world was made for that very purpose."

"Whenever you say, we'll be married," Lee stated.

Ruth was silent for a time, considering this. It, indeed, left her a
little startled.

"But it mustn't be too soon," she replied, at last. "We had best go on
as we are while your project is being started, for I wouldn't be so
selfish as to make a command on your time at a critical moment, Lee
dear. And I must plan clothes and things. Knowing that happiness is
ahead of us, oh, homesteading then will be only a lark! I'll never
need follow it up, but just abandon it when we're ready. Kiss me
again, Lee, and then we must start back."

They retraced their steps down the canon, obtaining the basket of
berries on the way. Once, as they neared the cabins, Ruth paused,
gazing at her lover.

"I had actually come to hate these claims," she said. "I felt chained
to the spot, as if something would keep me in the miserable place for
the rest of my life. Had I known how lonely I should be here, I never
would have come."

"But that's over now, Ruth. A little while longer, that's all."

She gazed at him with an odd, intent, anxious expression upon her
countenance.

"You'll not let your irrigation project keep you here always?" she
asked. "Or live in other places like it? These mountains and this
desolate mesa get on my nerves. If I thought you were going to stay
away from other people, foregoing all the pleasures of cities and the
like, I think I should lose my courage and not b