elf on your charity."

"And what would Larry do without you?" asked Miss Schuyler.

The quick enthusiasm in Breckenridge's face pleased her. "Larry's work is
splendidly done already," he said. "He asked nothing for himself--and got
no more; but now the State is offering every man the rights he fought for.
The proclamations are out, and any citizen who wants it can take up his
homestead grant. It will be something to remember that I carried his
shield; but Larry has no more need of an armour-bearer."

"I am older than you are."

"Ten years in wisdom, and fifty in goodness, but I scarcely fancy that
more than six months separate our birthdays. Now, I know I am not
expressing myself very nicely, but, you see, we can't all be eloquent, and
perhaps it should count for a little when I tell you that I never made an
attempt of the kind before. I am, however, most painfully anxious to
convince you."

Miss Schuyler recognized it, and liked him the more for the diffidence
which he wrapped in hasty speech. "Then," she said softly, "if in six
months from now----"

Breckenridge swayed in his saddle; but the girl's heel was quicker, and as
her horse plunged the hand he would have laid on her bridle fell to his
side.

"No!" she said. "If in six months you are still in the same mind, you can
come to Hastings-on-the-Hudson, and speak to me again. Then, you may find
me disposed to listen; but we will go on to Fremont in the meanwhile."

Breckenridge's response was unpremeditated, but the half-broken horse,
provoked by his sudden movement, rose with fore hoofs in the air, and then
whirled round in a circle. Its rider laughed exultantly, swaying lithely,
with the big hat still in one hand that disdained the bridle; but his face
grew grave when there was quietness again, and he turned towards the
girl.

"I shall be in the same mind," he said, "for ever and ever."

They rode on to Fremont, and the next day Breckenridge drove Miss
Schuyler, who was going back to New York, the first stage of her journey
to the depot. A month had passed when one evening Torrance rode that way.
The prairie, lying still and silent with a flush of saffron upon its
western rim, was tinged with softest green, but broad across the
foreground stretched the broken, chocolate-tinted clods of the ploughing,
and the man's face grew grimmer as he glanced at them. He turned and
watched the long lines of crawling cattle that stretched half-way across
the vast swee