an. My greatest regret is that I can't take
you and share the fun. But it goes without saying that I can't. Only,
Charlie Menocal----"

"Lee, what's got into you to-night? If it were not for Mr.
Gretzinger's and Charlie's thoughtfulness, I'd have died of
lonesomeness long before this. You know how I hate this life, this
homestead business. You know I'm only waiting until you've finished
and we can be married and go away where there is something worth
while. Now be reasonable. You work too hard, so that every little
speck looks like a mountain. And it's making you narrow, too, or will
if you don't watch out. I have to kill time somehow till we can be
married and so you ought not to find fault with my doing it. Run along
over and talk to Imo in her cabin now, Lee; that's a good boy. I
didn't get back home from town last night until after midnight, and
I'm sleepy."

He did not go to Imo's cabin, but to camp instead. For the bitterness
of his disappointment at his failure to move her made him desire the
darkness and solitude of the ride home. With her, it seemed, he was in
a worse predicament than he had been when faced with the problem of
his ditch; for that he had found an answer, found something to take
hold of. But she was not like the mesa, to be mastered by sheer will
and incessant labour. Character is intangible, and he found himself
balked. One cannot lay hands on the desires in a heart and pluck them
out, or on the spirit and twist it straight.

His bitterness became acute when some time later Charlie Menocal came
driving with Ruth along the rutted trail by the canal to where he
stood inspecting a new drop.

"You wait, Charlie; I'll not be long," she said, as she alighted.
"Come with me out of earshot, will you, Lee?"

They moved to a spot that satisfied her.

"I heard you were doing this and I asked Charlie to bring me here,"
she began. "I wanted to see for myself. And it's true. You're going
ahead and make these things out of concrete. I'm indignant, I'm hurt.
After you led me to rely----"

Bryant stopped her sharply.

"No, Ruth, not that. I'm sorry that you gained the impression I should
use wood instead of concrete; and it never was in my mind to do so, to
use wood. My decision was fully made when you raised the matter in the
hotel parlour at Kennard, and I explained my reasons for the decision.
I didn't tell you bluntly, perhaps. I waited, trusting that you would
come round to my way of thinking and