ce.

"I'm nearly nineteen; I don't know as much as a girl of twelve," she
said.

"I've never met any of those precocious twelve-year-olds," he told
her, shaking his head gravely. "You know a great deal more than you're
conscious of, I think, Miss Sullivan. We don't get the best of it out
of books."

"I'm a prisoner here," she said, stretching her arms as if she
displayed her bonds, "as much of a prisoner in my way as Swan
Carlson's wife was in hers. You cut her chain; nobody ever has come to
cut mine."

"Your knight will come riding over the hill some evening. One comes
into every woman's life, sooner or later, I think."

"Mostly in imagination," said Joan. And her way of saying it, so wise
and superior, as if she spoke of some toy which she had outgrown,
brought a smile again to her visitor's grave face.

Charley was not interested in his sister's bondage, or in the coming
of a champion to set her free. He went off to send the dogs after an
adventurous bunch of sheep that was straying from the main flock. Joan
sighed as she looked after him, putting a strand of hair away behind
her ear. Presently she brightened, turning to Mackenzie with
quickening eyes.

"I'll make a bargain with you, Mr. Mackenzie, if you're in earnest
about learning the sheep business," she said.

"All right; let's hear it."

"Dad's coming over here today to finish cutting hay. I'll make a deal
with him for you to get a band of sheep to run on shares if you'll
agree to teach me enough to get into college--if I've got brains
enough to learn."

"The doubt would be on the side of the teacher, not the pupil, Miss
Sullivan. Maybe your father wouldn't like the arrangement, anyway."

"He'll like it, all right. What do you say?"

"I don't think it would be very much to my advantage to take charge of
a band of sheep under conditions that might look as if I needed
somebody to plug for me. Your father might think of me as an
incompetent and good-for-nothing person."

"You're afraid I haven't got it in me to learn--you don't want to
waste time on me!" Joan spoke with a sad bitterness, as one who saw
another illusion fading before her eyes.

"Not that," he hastened to assure her, putting out his hand as if to
add the comfort of his touch to the salve of his words. "I'm only
afraid your father wouldn't have anything to do with me if you were to
approach him with any such proposal. From what I've heard of him he's
a man who likes a fellow to do