was different. She and he had
toiled side by side like real partners; her efforts had been real and
unstinted. If he were buying her out, for instance--but Nellie!
Well, that was the way, he noticed, with many women--doing little and
demanding much. He didn't care for them; not he. From the day Nellie
left, Martin managed alone in the shack, "baching it," and putting his
whole heart and soul into the development of his quarter-section.

II. OUT OF THE DUST

AT thirty-four, Martin was still unmarried, and though he had not
travelled far on that strange road to affluence which for some seems a
macadamized boulevard, but for so many, like himself, a rough cow-path,
he had done better than the average farmer of Fallon County. To be sure,
this was nothing over which to gloat. A man who received forty cents a
bushel for wheat was satisfied; corn sold at twenty-eight cents, and
the hogs it fattened in proportion. But his hundred and sixty acres were
clear from debt, four thousand dollars were on deposit drawing three per
cent in The First State Bank--the old Bank of Fallon, now incorporated
with Robinson as its president. In the pasture, fourteen sows with
their seventy-five spring pigs rooted beside the sleek herd of steers
fattening for market; the granary bulged with corn; two hundred bushels
of seed wheat were ready for sowing; his machinery was in excellent
condition; his four Percheron mares brought him, each, a fine mule colt
once a year; and the well never went dry, even in August. Martin was--if
one discounted the harshness of the life, the dirt, the endless duties
and the ever-pressing chores--a Kansas plutocrat.

One fiery July day, David Robinson drew up before Martin's shack. The
little old box-house was still unpainted without and unpapered within.
Two chairs, a home-made table with a Kansas City Star as a cloth,
a sheetless bed, a rough cupboard, a stove and floors carpeted with
accumulations of untidiness completed the furnishings.

"Chris-to-pher Columbus!" exploded Robinson, "why don't you fix yourself
up a bit, Martin? The Lord knows you're going to be able to afford it.
What you need is a wife--someone to look after you." And as Martin,
observing him calmly, made no response, he added, "I suppose you know
what I want. You've been watching for this day, eh, Martin? All Fallon
County's sitting on its haunches--waiting."

"Oh, I haven't been worrying. A fellow situated like me, with a
hundred and si