age, wonderingly. "Disappoint you?
Of course I couldn't marry a woman like you! You don't want me to do
_that_? That wouldn't be right."

"Oh, I don't mean that! I don't know what I did mean!"

Some sense of her perturbation must have come to him. "Now don't you
worry, ma'am. Don't you git troubled none a-tall. I'm a-goin' to take
care of you myself until everything gits all right."

"I'm a thief! I'm a beggar!" was all she could say.

"The same here, ma'am! You've got nothing on me," said Sim Gage.
"What I said is, we're in the same boat, and we got to go the best way
we can till things shapes out. It ain't very much I got to offer you.
Us sagebrushers has to take the leavings."

"You've said the truth for me--the very truth. I'm of the discard--I
can't earn my living. Leavings! And I wanted to earn my living."

"You've earned it now, ma'am," said Sim Gage; and perhaps made the
largest speech of all his life.

"Well, anyways, we're going to come to my land right now," he added
after a time. "We've passed the school house, only couple mile from my
place. On ahead here is Wid Gardner's ranch, on the left hand side. I
don't reckon he's at home. I told you the school ma'am had maybe went
off to her homestead, didn't I? Maybe Nels Jensen, he's maybe driving
her to the Big Springs station down below. This here is Wid Gardner's
team and buckboard, ma'am. I ain't got around to fixing mine up this
spring. I've got to drive back after a while and take these things
back to Wid."

Her situation grew more tense. They were coming now to the end of the
journey--to her home--to his home. She did not speak. To her ears the
sound of the horses' feet seemed less, as though they were passing on a
road not so much used.

"This is a sort of alley, like, down along between the willers and the
rail fence," explained Sim Gage. "It's about half a mile of this.
Then we come to my gate."

And presently they did come to his gate, where the silver-edged willows
came close on the one side and the wide hay meadows reached out on the
other toward the curving pathway of the river. He pulled up.

"Could you hold these horses, ma'am, fer a minute? I got to open the
gate."

He handed her the reins, it never occurring to him that there was any
one in the world who had never driven horses. She was frightened, but
resolved to appear brave and useful.

Sim Gage began to untwist the short club which bound the wire ga