pparently of
advertising nature, in fine type, sometimes marked with display lines.

Wid turned page after page, grunting as he did so, until at last he
tossed the magazine upon the top of the box and so went about his
evening chores. Thus the title of the publication was left showing to
any observer. The headline was done in large black letters, advising
all who might have read that this was a copy of the magazine known as
_Hearts Aflame_.

Curiously enough, on the front page the headline of a certain
advertisement showed plainly. It read, "Wanted: A Wife."

From this it may be divined that here was one of those periodicals
printed no one knows where, circulated no one knows how, which none the
less after some fashion of their own do find their way out in all the
womanless regions of the world--Alaska, South Africa, the dry plains of
Canada and our Western States, mining camps far out in the outlying
districts beyond the edge of the homekeeping lands--it is in regions
such as these that periodicals such as the foregoing may be found.
Their circulation is among those who seek "acquaintance with a view to
matrimony." They are the official organs of Cupid himself--_or_ Cupid
commercialized, or Cupid much misnamed and sailing his craft upon a
wide and uncharted sea. In lands of the first pick or the first plow,
these half-illicit pages find their way for their own reasons; and men
and women both sometimes have read them.

Wid Gardner finished his own brief work about the corral, came in,
washed his hands, and began to cook for himself his simple supper.
Then he washed his dishes, threw the towel above them as before, and
went to bed, since he had little else to do.

Early the next morning Wid had finished his breakfast, and was at the
edge of the main valley road, which passed near to his own front gate.
He lighted a pipe and sat down to smoke, now and again glancing down
the road at a slowly approaching figure.

It was the schoolma'am, Mrs. Davidson, who daily presided at the little
log schoolhouse a mile further on up the road, where some twenty
children found their way over varying distances from the surrounding
ranches. This lady was of much dignity and of much avoirdupois as
well. Her ruddy face was wrinkled up somewhat like an apple in the
late fall. She walked slowly and ponderously, and her gait being
somewhat restricted, it was needful that she make an early start each
day to her place of labor, sin