erests, and Mose avoided her studiously.

That night as he rode up Daniel was at the barn. To him Mose repeated
Delmar's offer.

Pratt at once said: "I don't blame ye fer pullin' out, Mose. I done the
best I could, considerin'. Co'se I can't begin fer to pay ye the wages
Delmar can, but be keerful; trouble is comin', shore pop, and I'd hate
to have ye killed, on the wimmen's account. They 'pear to think more o'
you than they do o' me."

Jennie's eyes filled with tears when Mose told her of his new job. She
looked very sad and wistful and more interesting than ever before in her
life as she came out to say good-by.

"Well, Mose, I reckon you're goin' for good?"

"Not so very far," he said, in generous wish to ease her over the
parting.

"You'll come 'round once in a while, won't ye?"

"Why, sure! It's only twenty miles over to the camp."

"Come over Sundays, an' we'll have potpie and soda biscuits fer ye," she
said, with a feminine reliance on the power of food.

"All right," he replied with a smile, and abruptly galloped away.

His heart was light with the freedom of his new condition. He considered
himself a man now. His wages were definite, and no distinction was drawn
between him and Delmar himself. Besides, the immense flock of sheep
interested him at first.

His duties were simple. By day he helped to guide the sheep gently to
their feeding and in their search for water; by night he took his turn
at guarding from wolves. His sleep was broken often, even when not on
guard. They were such timid folk, these sheep; their fears passed easily
into destructive precipitances.

But the night watch had its joys. As the sunlight died out of the sky
and the blazing stars filled the deep blue air above his head, the
world grew mysterious and majestic, as well as menacing. The wolves
clamored from the buttes, which arose on all sides like domes of a
sleeping city. Crickets cried in the grass, drowsily, and out of the
dimness and dusk something vast, like a passion too great for words,
fell upon the boy. He turned his face to the unknown West. There the
wild creatures dwelt; there were the beings who knew nothing of books or
towns and toil. There life was governed by the ways of the wind, the
curve of the streams, the height of the trees--there--just over the edge
of the plain, the mountains dwelt, waiting for him.

Then his heart ached like that of a young eagle looking from his natal
rock into the dim valley, mi