e, beneath which she sat, sheltered
her bare head from the burning noonday sun. And here, so high up on
the shoulder of the valley, she felt there was at least air to
breathe.

The book on the ground beside her had only just been laid there; its
pages, wide open, had been turned face downward upon the dry,
grassless patch surrounding the tree trunk.

Only a few feet away another girl, slight and fair-haired, was nimbly
plying her needle upon a pile of white lawn, as to the object of which
there could be small enough doubt. She was working with the care and
obvious appreciation which most women display toward the manufacture
of delicate underclothing.

As her companion laid her book aside and turned toward the valley, the
pretty needlewoman raised a pair of gray, speculative eyes. But almost
at once they dropped again to her work. It was only for a moment,
however. She reached the end of her seam and began to fold the
material up, and, as she did so, her eyes were once more raised in the
direction of her sister, only now they were full of laughter.

"Kate," she said, in a tone in which mirth would not be denied, "do
you know, it's five years to-day since we first came to Rocky Springs?
Five years." She breathed a profound sigh, which was full of mockery.
"You were twenty-three when we came. You are twenty-eight now, and I
am twenty-two. We'll soon be old maids. The folks down there," she
went on, nodding at the village below, "will soon be speaking of us as
'them two old guys,' or 'them funny old dears, the Seton sisters.'
Isn't it awful to think of? We came out West to find husbands for
ourselves, and here we are very nearly--old maids."

Kate Seton's eyes wore a responsive twinkle, but she did not turn.

"You're a bit of a joke, Hel," she replied, in the slow musical
fashion of a deep contralto voice.

"But I'm not a joke," protested the other, with pretended severity.
"And I won't be called 'Hel,' just because my name's Helen. It--it
sounds like the way Pete and Nick swear at each other when they've
been spending their pay at Dirty O'Brien's. Besides, it doesn't alter
facts at all. It won't take much more climbing to find ourselves right
on the shelf, among the frying pans and other cooking utensils.
I'm--I'm tired of it--I--really am. It's no use talking. I'm a woman,
and I'd sooner see a pair of trousers walking around my house than
another bunch of skirts--even if they belong to my beloved sister.
Trousers