sed to me there will be
forwarded." He laid his visiting card upon the table.

Toomey placed a detaining hand upon his arm as he turned from the table.

"Look here! Won't let you go till you promise come make us a visit--stay
month--stay year--stay rest o' your life--la'sh string hanging' out for
you. Pure air, Swizzerland of America, an' greatest natural
resources--"

The stranger detached himself gently.

"I appreciate your hospitality," he replied courteously. "Who knows?" to
Mrs. Toomey, "I might some day look in on you--I've never been out in
that section of the country."

With another bow he paid his own account and left the restaurant.

"Thoroughbred!" declared Toomey enthusiastically. "Old Dear, I made a
hit with him."

Mrs. Toomey was staring after the erect commanding figure.

She read again the name on the card she held in her fingers and murmured
with an expression of speculative wonder:

"The spelling's different but--Prentiss! and she looks enough like him
to be his daughter."

CHAPTER XVI

STRAWS

It was spring. The sagebrush had turned from gray to green and the
delicate pink of the rock roses showed here and there on the hillsides.
The crisp rattle of cottonwood leaves was heard when the wind stirred
through the gulches, and along the water course the drooping plumes of
the willows were pale green and tender. It was the season of hope, of
energy revived and new ambitions--the months of rejuvenation, when the
blood runs faster and the heart beats higher.

But, alas, the joyful finger of spring touched the citizens of Prouty
lightly. Worn out and jaded with the strain of a hard winter and waiting
for something to happen, they did not feel their pulses greatly
accelerated by mere sunshine. It took more than a rock rose and a pussy
willow to color the world for them. June might as well be January, if
one is financially embarrassed.

The suspicion was becoming a private conviction that when Prouty
acquired anything beyond a blacksmith shop and a general merchandise
store it got more than it needed. Conceived and born in windy optimism,
it had no stamina. The least observant could see that, like a fiddler
crab's, the progress of the town was backward. But these truths were
admitted only in moments of drunken candor or deepest depression, for to
hint that Prouty had no future was as treasonable as criticising the
government in a crisis. So the citizens went on boasting with dogged
ch