d the world do with Joan Sullivan if she ever broke her
fetters and went to it? How would it accept her faith and frankness,
her high scorn for the deceits upon which it fed? Not kindly, he knew.
There would be disillusionment ahead for her, and bitter awakening
from long-wrapping dreams. If he could teach her to be content in the
wide freedom of that place he would accomplish the greatest service
that he could bring her in the days of her untroubled youth.
Discourage her, said Tim Sullivan. Mackenzie felt that this was not
his job.

"Maybe Charley's right about it," she said, her voice low, and soft
with that inherited gentleness which must have come from Tim
Sullivan's mother, Mackenzie thought. "He's a wise kid, maybe I would
want to come back faster than I went away. But I get so tired of it
sometimes I walk up and down out here by the wagon half the night, and
wear myself out making plans that I may never be able to put
through."

"It's just as well," he told her, nodding again in his solemn, weighty
fashion; "everybody that amounts to anything has this fever of unrest.
Back home we used to stack the wheat to let it sweat and harden.
You're going through that. It takes the grossness out of us."

"Have you gone through it?"

"Years of it; over the worst of it now, I hope."

"And you came here. Was that the kind of an ambition you had? Was that
all your dreams brought you?"

"But I've seen more here than I ever projected in my schemes, Miss
Joan. I've seen the serenity of the stars in this vastness; I've felt
the wind of freedom on my face." And to himself: "And I have seen the
firelight leap in a maiden's eyes, and I have looked deep into the
inspiring fountain of her soul." But there was not the boldness in
him, nor the desire to risk her rebuke again, to bring it to his
lips.

"Do you think you'll like it after you get over the lonesomeness?"

"Yes, if I take the lonesomeness."

"You'll take it, all right. But if you ever do work up to be a
sheepman, and of course you will if you stick to the range long
enough, you'll never be able to leave again. Sheep tie a person down
like a houseful of children."

"Maybe I'd never want to go. I've had my turn at it out there; I've
been snubbed and discounted, all but despised, because I had a little
learning and no money to go with it. I can hide my little learning
here, and nobody seems to care about the money. Yes, I think I'll stay
on the range."

Joan turne