buckboard."

"And you know I ain't got no team--my horse, he ain't right
strong--didn't winter none too well--and I couldn't go there with just
one mule, now could I?"

"You'll have to take my team of broncs," said Wid. "You can start out
from my place."

"But one thing, Sim Gage," he continued, "when you've started, I'm
a-coming down here with a pitch-fork and I'm a-going to clean out this
place! It ain't human. We'll do the best we can. Since there ain't
a-going to be no marrying right off, you'll have to sleep in your wall
tent outside. You'll have to git some wood cut up. You'll have to git
a clean bed here in the house,--this bed of yours is going to be burned
out in the yard. You'll have to git new blankets when you go to town."

"As fer your clothes"--he turned a contemptuous glance upon Sim as he
stood--"they ain't _hardly_ fit fer a bridegroom! Go to the Golden
Eagle, and git yourself a full outfit, top to bottom--new shirts, new
underclothes, new pants, new hat, new socks, new gloves, new
everything. This girl can't come out here and see you the way you are,
and this place the way it's been. She'd start something."

"Well, if you leave it to me," said Sim Gage mildly, "all this here
seems kind of sudden. You come in afore I'm up, and tell me to burn my
bed, and sleep in a tent, and borry a wagon and team and go to town fer
to marry a girl I never seen. That don't look reason'ble to me,
especial since I ain't had no hand in it."

"It's up to you now."

"How do I know whether I want that girl or not? I ain't read no
letters--nor wrote none. I ain't seen no picture of her----"

"Well," said Wid, and reached a hand into his breast pocket, "here she
is."

In a feeling more akin to awe than anything else, Sim Gage bent over,
looking down at the clear oval face, the piled dark hair, the tender
contour of cheek and chin of Mary Warren, as beautiful a young lady as
any man is apt ever to see; so beautiful that this man's inexperienced
heart stopped in his bosom. This picture once had been buttoned in the
tunic of an aviator who flew for the three flags; her brother; and
before his death and its return more than one of Dan Warren's army
friends had looked at it reverently as Sim Gage did now.

"Wears glasses, don't she," said he, to conceal his confusion. "Reckon
she's a school ma'am?"

"Ask me, and I'll say she's a lady. She says she's a working girl.
Says she's had trouble. Says she's u