emained; and he resolved grimly that he would persist until at least
he had been accepted as something better than a blundering boor. Under
Major Buford's invitation he called now and again at the Halfway Ranch,
and the major was gladder each time to see him, for he valued the
society of one whose experiences ran somewhat parallel with his own,
and whose preferences were kindred to those of his natural class; and,
moreover, there was always a strange comradery among those whose
problems were the same, the "neighbours" of the sparsely settled West.
Mrs. Buford also received Franklin with pleasure, and Mary Ellen
certainly always with politeness. Yet, fatal sign, Mary Ellen never
ran for her mirror when she knew that Franklin was coming. He was but
one of the many who came to the Halfway House; and Franklin, after more
than one quiet repulse, began to know that this was an indifference
grounded deeper than the strange haughtiness which came to be assumed
by so many women of the almost womanless West, who found themselves in
a land where the irreverent law of supply and demand assigned to them a
sudden value.

Of lovers Mary Ellen would hear of none, and this was Franklin's sole
consolation. Yet all day as he laboured there was present in his
subconsciousness the personality of this proud and sweet-faced girl.
Her name was spelled large upon the sky, was voiced by all the birds.
It was indeed her face that looked up from the printed page. He dared
not hope, and yet shrunk from the thought that he must not, knowing
what lethargy must else ingulf his soul. By day a sweet, compelling
image followed him, until he sought relief in sleep. At night she was
again the shadowy image of his dreams. Reason as well as instinct
framed excuses for him, and he caught himself again arguing with the
world that here was destiny, here was fate! Wandering blindly over all
the weary intervening miles, weak and in need of strength to shelter
her, tender and noble and gentle, worthy of love and needing love and
care in these rude conditions for which she was so unfit--surely the
stars had straightened out his life for him and told him what to do!
He heard so clearly the sweet, imperious summons which is the second
command put upon animate nature: First, to prevail, to live; second, to
love, to survive! Life and love, the first worthless without the
latter, barren, flowerless, shorn of fruitage, branded with the mark of
the unattained.