ing under the rafters. "Yes," he said, with great
composure. "It always does that in this country."

She shot a quick glance at him. Was he making fun of her? No; plainly
not; he was just making fun _with_ her; he had a vein of humor. And a
little before she had found his face drawn in sympathy for her father.
Perhaps for her. . . . He was not all on the surface.

He completed his operation at the stove and returned the lid to its
place with no lack of deliberation. He was evidently waiting for her
to speak again, but she worked on in silence.

"What did you say about milking?" he ventured at length.

"I asked you if you milked," she said, with an attempt at curtness.
"And you answered, 'Milk what?' as though that were clever. And we
need milk for breakfast."

"Well, I was serious enough," he said. "There isn't a cow within
twenty miles."

"No cows? Why, I thought this was the ranching country?"

"Sure thing. We sell beef and buy milk. Let me show you."

He approached a packing-case on the wall, walking softly and extending
his hands as though to touch it gently, and murmuring, "So boss; so
boss," as he went. From the box he removed a tin of condensed milk,
which he set on the table. In his pocket he found a nail, and with a
hammer quickly made two holes in the tin.

"Milkin' is finished," he announced.

At this juncture the doctor, who had been resting in the room with his
patient, entered the kitchen. During the setting of the limb he had
gradually become aware of the position of Irene in the household, but
had that not been so, one glance at the boy and girl as they now stood
in the bright morning sunshine, he with his big, wiry frame, his brown
face, his dark eyes, his black hair; she, round and knit and smooth,
with the pink shining through her fair skin and the light of youth
dancing in her grey eyes and the light of day glancing on her brown
hair, must have told him they had sprung from widely separated stock.
For one perilous moment he was about to apologize for the mistake made
in the darkness, but some wise instinct closed his lips. But he
wondered why she had not corrected him.

They were seated at breakfast when the senior Elden made his
appearance. He had slept off his debauch and was as sober as a man in
the throes of alcoholic appetite may be. He was only partially
dressed; his face had the peculiar bulginess of the hard drinker; his
eyes were watery and shifty, and several