d him so, as one friend to another,
pledging him to secrecy, showing a little ring on a white ribbon about
her neck. Her Corydon was a sheepman's son who lived beyond the
Sullivan ranch, and could dance like a butterfly and sing songs to the
banjo in a way to melt the heart of any maid. So Mary said, but in her
own way, with blushes, and wide, serious eyes.

Mackenzie liked Mary from the first ingenuous word, and promised to
hold her secret and help her to happiness in any way that a man might
lift an honorable hand. And he smiled when he recalled Tim Sullivan's
word about catching them young. Surely a man had to be stirring early
in the day to catch them in the sheeplands. Youth would look out for
its own there, as elsewhere. Tim Sullivan was right about it there. He
was wiser than he knew.

Mary was dressed as neatly as Joan always dressed for her work with
the sheep. And she wore a little black crucifix about her neck on
another ribbon which she had no need to conceal. When she touched it
she smiled and smiled, and not for the comfort of the little cross,
Mackenzie understood, but in tenderness for what lay beneath it, and
for the shepherd lad who gave it. There was a beauty in it for him
that made the glad day brighter.

This fresh, sprightly generation would redeem the sheeplands, and
change the business of growing sheep, he said. The isolation would go
out of that life; running sheep would be more like a business than a
penance spent in heartache and loneliness. The world could not come
there, of course. It had no business there; it should not come. But
they would go to it, those young hearts, behold its wonders, read its
weaknesses, and return. And there would be no more straining of the
heart in lonesomeness such as Joan had borne, and no more discontent
to be away.

"I hoped you'd marry Joan," said Mary, with a sympathetic little sigh.
"I don't like Earl Reid."

"Mary?" said Mackenzie. Mary looked up inquiringly. "Can you keep a
secret for me, Mary?"

"Try me, John."

"I _am_ going to marry Joan."

"Oh, you've got it all settled? Did Joan wear your ring when she went
home?"

"No, she didn't wear my ring, Mary, but she would have worn it if I'd
seen her before she was sent away."

"I thought you were at the bottom of it, John," the wise Mary said.
"You know, dad's taken her sheep away from her, and she had a
half-interest in at least a thousand head."

"I didn't know that, but it will not make an