shade stronger than this
awful disease with which he was afflicted.

The hopelessness of the position for a moment almost overwhelmed her.
She knew that she had no love--love such as he required--to give him
in return. And when that finally became patent to him away would go
the last vestige of self-restraint, and his fall would be headlong.

She knew his early story, and it was a pitiful one. She knew he was
born of good parents, rich parents, in New York, that he was well
educated. He had been brought up to become an artist, and therein had
lain the secret of his fall. In Paris, and Rome, and other European
cities, he had first tasted the dregs of youthful debauchery, and
disaster had promptly set in. Then, after his student days, had come
the final break. His parents abandoned him as a ne'er-do-well, and,
setting him up as a rancher in a small way, had sent him out west,
another victim of that over-indulgence which helps to populate the
fringes of civilization.

The moment was a painful one, and Helen was quick to perceive her
sister's distress. She came to her rescue with an effort at lightness.
But her pretty eyes had become very gentle.

She turned to the man who had just taken a letter from his pocket.

"Tell us some more about Big Brother Bill," she said, with the
pretense of a sigh. Then, with a little daring in her manner: "Do you
think he'll like me? Because if he don't I'll sure go into mourning,
and order my coffin, and bury me on the hillside with my face to the
beautiful east--where I come from."

The man's moment of passionate discontent had passed, and he smiled
into the girl's questioning eyes in his gentle fashion.

"He'll just be crazy about you, Helen," he said. "Say, when he gets
his big, silly blue eyes on to you in that swell suit, why, he'll just
hustle you right off to the parson, and you'll be married before you
get a notion there's such a whirlwind around Rocky Springs."

"Is he--such a whirlwind?" the girl demanded with appreciation.

"He surely is," the man asserted definitely.

Helen sighed with relief. "I'm glad," she said. "You see, a
whirlwind's a sort of summer storm. All sunshine--and--and well, a
whirlwind don't suggest the cold, vicious, stormy gales of the folks
in this village, nor the dozy summer zephyrs of the women in this
valley. Yes, I'd like a whirlwind. His eyes are blue, and--silly?"

Charlie smiled more broadly as he nodded again. "His eyes are blue.
And big.