e cleared the table and washed the dishes Hale fed the horses
and cut more wood, and it was dusk when he came to the porch. Through
the door he saw that she had made his bed in one corner. And through
her door he saw one of the white things, that had lain untouched in her
drawer, now stretched out on her bed.

The stars were peeping through the blue spaces of a white-clouded sky
and the moon would be coming by and by. In the garden the flowers were
dim, quiet and restful. A kingfisher screamed from the river. An owl
hooted in the woods and crickets chirped about them, but every passing
sound seemed only to accentuate the stillness in which they were
engulfed. Close together they sat on the old porch and she made him tell
of everything that had happened since she left the mountains, and she
told him of her flight from the mountains and her life in the West--of
her father's death and the homesickness of the ones who still were
there.

[Illustration: She made him tell of everything, 0444]

"Bub is a cowboy and wouldn't come back for the world, but I could
never have been happy there," she said, "even if it hadn't been for
you--here."

"I'm just a plain civil engineer, now," said Hale, "an engineer without
even a job and--" his face darkened.

"It's a shame, sweetheart, for you--" She put one hand over his lips and
with the other turned his face so that she could look into his eyes. In
the mood of bitterness, they did show worn, hollow and sad, and around
them the wrinkles were deep.

"Silly," she said, tracing them gently with her finger tips, "I love
every one of them, too," and she leaned over and kissed them.

"We're going to be happy each and every day, and all day long! We'll
live at the Gap in winter and I'll teach."

"No, you won't."

"Then I'll teach _you_ to be patient and how little I care for anything
else in the world while I've got you, and I'll teach you to care for
nothing else while you've got me. And you'll have me, dear, forever and
ever----"

"Amen," said Hale.

Something rang out in the darkness, far down the river, and both sprang
to their feet. "It's Uncle Billy!" cried June, and she lifted the old
horn to her lips. With the first blare of it, a cheery halloo
answered, and a moment later they could see a gray horse coming up the
road--coming at a gallop, and they went down to the gate and waited.

"Hello, Uncle Billy" cried June. The old man answered with a
fox-hunting yell and Hale st