ter a while. I'll just ride along over on
horseback. I don't like to put a guest to work, but really I need a
little help about that roof. It has fallen in at one corner, and I
presume it ought to be repaired, for the sake of Miss Beauchamp's
conscience when she goes to the Land Office to prove up."

Franklin assented to this proposition with such eagerness that he
blushed as he saw how evident had been his pleasure at this opportunity
for a moment's speech alone with the girl who sat so near but yet so
unapproachable. "I'll be delighted," said he.

Mary Ellen said nothing. The pink spot in her cheek was plainly
deeper. It did not lessen as she stood watching the struggle the two
men had in again hitching to the buggy the wild black horse. Seizing
the tug with one hand and the singletree with the other, Franklin
fairly swept the obdurate beast off its balance as he forced it to its
place at the pole. His strength was apparent.

"Are you afraid to ride behind that horse?" asked he.

"I don't think so," she replied simply, and her uncle helped her in,
while Franklin steadied the team. Yet how Franklin hated the wild
black horse now! All the way across the prairie during the short drive
to the shanty the beast gave him plenty to do to keep it inside the
harness, and he had no time for a single word. The girl sat silent at
his side, looking straight ahead. Franklin felt her arm brush his at
the jolting of the vehicle now and then. Her hand, brown and shapely,
lay in her lap. As Franklin gathered the slack of the reins, his own
hand approaching hers, it seemed to him that an actual emanation, a
subtle warmth, stole from her hand to his, an unspoken appeal from some
vital source. A vague, delicious sense of happiness came over him. He
too fell quite silent. He guided the horses as though he saw neither
them nor aught else between him and some far-off horizon. At the
shanty he helped her down. Ignorant, he saw not the tale of a bosom
heaving, nor read correctly the story of the pink in the cheek. He
believed rather the import of a face turned away, and of features set
in a mask of repose. There had as yet been no word.

The claim shanty was indeed in some need of repair. One corner of the
roof had fallen in, carrying with it a portion of the sod wall that
made the inclosure, and spilling a quantity of earth in the bed
customarily occupied by Aunt Lucy when she "resided" here in company
with her mistr