limbed back into the sagging
buckboard and departed. Casey returned to his quarters and began to
gather an outfit by the only practical method; that is to say, by
piling everything he wanted in a heap. He was engaged in this
occupation when Clyde knocked and entered.

"Why, Casey, whatever are you doing?"

He told her, and she approved his plan. She began to examine the heap
he had thrown together on the table--knife, cartridges, fishhooks and
line, compass, matches, sweater, poncho--with a girl's interest in such
masculine possessions. But she exclaimed at the lack of toilet
articles. Where were his razors, his hairbrushes?

"I'll get along without them."

"My goodness, boy, you'll be scrubby. Aren't you going to take even
a--a toothbrush?"

"Yes, I'll do that," he laughed. "There, that's enough for to-night.
Feng will put up grub in the morning. What have you done with Kitty
Wade and her husband? Hadn't we better look them up? They may be making
love on the sly."

"Do you need a chaperon so badly?" She slipped her arm in his. "Come
on, then. They've gone for a walk up the ditch. We'll meet them and
come back together. Only I want to impress upon you, Casey, that they
must walk ahead of us--unless it gets very dark, indeed."

"I think I get you," he laughed. "We'll arrange that detail. Kitty Wade
is a most sympathetic young matron."

They found the Wades, and their evening stroll became an inspection of
the ranch. The effects of the rain were already visible in the colour
of the grain. It was darker, more vigorous, sending forth new shoots.
The grass lands, where the network of roots had retained the earlier
moisture, were lush and knee deep. Soon it would be ready to cut.

The beauty of the evening held them out of doors. It was good to idle
in the twilight with the scent of clover in the nostrils, to walk among
the growing things. It was sweet to exchange confidences, to plan for
the future as man and woman have from the beginning, painting it
brightly, draping it in rose and gold, a perfect picture wherein all
the colours harmonized.

It was the time of dreams. They gazed into the future as children might
look across an unknown sea, seeing in fancy its stately galleons, its
tall treasure ships, its white-winged pleasure craft, its wondrous,
palm-fringed islands, where summer abode always; but they had no eyes
for leaden skies and sullen shouldering swells spouting on hidden
reefs, the great, gray bergs