engine so that he might arrive the
sooner, and failing that he spent much of his time lurching between
smoking car and tourist sleeper, unable to sit quietly in any place for
longer than ten minutes or so. In his coat pocket, where his fingers
touched it often, was a crumpled bit of sage-brush. Dry it was, and the
gray leaves were crumbling under the touch of his homesick fingers, but
the smell of it, aromatic and fresh and strong, breathed of the plains he
loved.

At Kalispell he went out on the platform and filled his lungs again and
again with Montana air, that was clean of fog and had a nip to it. The
sun shone, the sky was blue and the clouds reminded him of a band of
new-washed sheep scattered and feeding quietly. The wind blew keen in
his face and set his blood a-dance, his blood, which for long months had
moved sluggishly in his veins.

At Shelby, a half-dozen cowboys galloped briefly into view as the train
whizzed by down the valley, and Weary raised the car window and leaned
far out to gaze after them with hungry eyes. He wanted to swing his hat
and give a whoop that would get the last wisps of fog and gray murk out
of his system--but there were other passengers already shivering and
eyeing him in unfriendly fashion because of the open window. He wanted
to get out and run and run bareheaded, over the bleak, brown hills; but
he closed the window and behaved as well as he could.

The stars came out and winked at him just as they used to do when he sat
on Meeker's front porch and listened to the schoolma'am singing softly in
the hammock, her guitar tinkling a mellow undertone. It was too early
now for the hammock to be swinging in the porch. School must be started
again, though, and seeing the schoolma'am lived right there with her aunt
Meeker, they weren't likely to hire another teacher.

He hoped Myrt Forsyth had gone back to Chadville where she belonged. He
wished now that he had written to some of the boys and kept posted on
what was happening. He had never sent back so much as a picture postal,
and he had consequently not heard a word. But Weary's nature was ever
hopeful except when he was extremely angry, and then he did not care much
about anything. So now, he took it for granted things had gone along
smoothly and that nothing would be changed.

* * * * *

Miss Satterly had just finished listlessly hearing the last spelling
class recite, when she glanced through