fence, and Tisdale swerved a little to reach a
stout poplar that formed the corner post. He saw that the wire ends met
there and felt in his pocket for his knife. "I see. And then he left the
responsibility to his wife."

"The wedding hadn't come off," she said sharply. "It was fixed for the
seventeenth of June, and that was only May. And I told him I couldn't risk
it--not in the face of those goats."

"And he?" pressed Hollis gently. This thistle, isolated, denied human
intercourse, was more easily handled than he had hoped.

"He said it suited him all right. He had been wanting to go to Alaska.
Nothing but that wedding had kept him back."

Tisdale stopped and opened his knife. "And he went?" he asked.

"Yes." The woman's face worked a little, and she stood looking at him with
hard, tragic eyes. "He sold the homestead for what he could get to raise
the money to take him to Dawson. He was gone in less than twenty-four
hours and before daylight, that night he left, I heard those goats
_ma-a-ing_ under my window. He had staked them there in the front yard and
tucked a note, with his compliments, in the door. He wrote he didn't know
of anything else he could leave that would make me remember him better."

Tisdale shook his head. "I wish I had been there." He slipped the knife in
between the ends of the wires and the bole, clawing, prying, twisting.
"And you kept them?" he added.

"Yes, I don't know why, unless it was because I knew it was the last thing
he expected. But I hated them worse than snakes. I couldn't stand it
having them around, and I hired a boy to herd them out on his father's
farm. Then I went on helping Dad, selling general merchandise and sorting
mail. But the post-office was moved that year five miles to the new
railroad station, and they put in a new man. Of course that meant a line
of goods, too, and competition. Trade fell off, then sickness came. It
lasted two years, and when Dad was gone, there wasn't much left of the
store but debt." She paused a moment, looking up to the serene sky above
the high plateau. A sudden moisture softened her burning eyes, and her
free hand crept to her throat. "Dad was a mighty fine man," she said. "He
had a great business head. It wasn't his fault he didn't leave me well
fixed."

Tisdale laid the loosened wire down on the ground and started to work on
another. "But there was the man in Alaska," he said. "Of course you let
him know."

"No, sir." Her eyes flash