ever been married in my life," he went on, arguing now. "I
ain't never seen a woman that I loved or looked at twicet but you. I
was too damn lazy to care anyway about anything till I seen you. I
just been drifting and fooling along. But now I ain't. I want to go
to work. I want to be somebody. Why, Annie, I reckon all the time I
was homesick, and didn't know it. But I tell you it wouldn't be no
home unless you was in it with me. I ain't fit to ask you to run it
fer me. But I do!"

It was the ancient story, even told direct in the open, unwhispered,
even told now, at such an hour and place. She did not answer at all,
but her sobbing had ceased. He stood still frowning, looking at her,
his hat pushed back from his forehead.

"I can't say no more'n I have," he concluded. "Years and years, Annie.
Wouldn't it settle a heap of things?"

"I got to have some sort of time to think things over, haven't I,
then?" She spoke with apparent venom, as though this were an affront
that had been offered her.

"All you want," said Wid Gardner gently. "I've done my own thinking.
I know."

"I've got to go in and get them folks something to eat, haven't I?"
said Annie, using her apron on her eyes. "It's going to be about the
last time all of us'll ever eat together any more."

"Well, we can invite them over, sometimes, can't we, Annie?" said Wid
Gardner calmly. And he kissed her brazenly and in the open.

CHAPTER XXXVI

MRS. DAVIDSON'S CONSCIENCE

It was fall, and the flame of the frost had fallen on the aspen and the
cottonwoods, and shorn the willows of most of their leaves. A hundred
thousand wild fowl honked their way across the meadows toward the black
flats where once had been a lake, and where now was immeasurable food
for them. Up in the mountains the elk were braying. The voice of the
coyotes at the pink of dawn seemed shriller now, as speaking of the
coming days of want. But the sun still was kind, the midday hour still
was one of warmth. A strange, keen value, immeasurably exalting, was
in the air. All nature was afoot, questioning of what was to come.

Mary Gage came in from the stream side that afternoon, the strap of her
trout creel cutting deep into the shoulder of her sweater. She placed
the basket down under the shadow of the willow trees, and hung up a
certain rod on certain nails under the eaves of the cabin. Her little
dog, Tim, soberly marched in front of her, still guiding her,