her language, maybe," he said.

"Yes, you say it's the easiest lesson to learn," she nodded, soberly
now. "Have you taught it to many--many--girls?"

"According to the book, Joan," he returned; "only that way."

Joan drew a deep breath, and looked away over the hills, and smiled.
But she said no more, after the way of one who has relieved the mind
on a doubted point.

"I expect I'll be getting a taste of the lonesomeness here of nights
pretty soon," Mackenzie said, feeling himself in an awkward, yet not
unpleasant situation with this frank girl's rather impertinent
question still burning in his heart. "Dad's going to leave me to take
charge of another flock."

"I'll try to keep you so busy you'll not have it very bad," she said.

"Yes, and you'll pump your fount of knowledge dry in a hurry if you
don't slow down a little," he returned. "At the pace you've set you'll
have to import a professor to take you along, unless one strays in
from somewhere."

"I don't take up with strays," said Joan, rather loftily.

"I think Dad's getting restless," Mackenzie said, hastening to cover
his mistake.

"He goes away every so often," Joan explained, "to see his Mexican
wife down around El Paso somewhere."

"Oh, that explains it. He didn't mention her to me."

"He will, all right. He'll cut out to see her in a little while, more
than likely, but he'll come drifting back with the shearers in the
spring like he always does. It seems to me like everybody comes back
to the sheep country that's ever lived in it a while. I wonder if I'd
want to come back, too?"

It was a speculation upon which Mackenzie did not feel called to make
comment. Time alone would prove to Joan where her heart lay anchored,
as it proves to all who go wandering in its own bitter way at last.

"I don't seem to want to go away as long as I'm learning something,"
Joan confessed, a little ashamed of the admission, it appeared, from
her manner of refusing to lift her head.

Mackenzie felt a great uplifting in his heart, as a song cheers it
when it comes gladly at the close of a day of perplexity and doubt and
toil. He reached out his hand as if to touch her and tell her how this
dawning of his hope made him glad, but withdrew it, dropping it at his
side as she looked up, a lively color in her cheeks.

"As long as you'll stay and teach me, there isn't any particular use
for me to leave, is there?" she inquired.

"If staying here would keep you, Joan, I'