e room where, upon the four-poster bed lay
the sheeted figure, and with a deeply reverent hand, lifted the
covering.

To Brent it seemed that he was looking into features exemplifying all
the wholesome virtues of those men who built the Republic. It was a
face of rugged strength and unassuming simplicity. Its lines bespoke
perils faced without fear and privations endured without complaint.
Here in a pocket of wilderness which the nation had forgotten survived
many others of those unaltered pioneers. But in the expression that
death had made fixed, as well as in facial pattern, Brent recognized
that simple kindliness to which courtesy had been a matter of instinct
and not of ceremony and the rude nobility of the man to whom others had
brought their tangled disputes, in all confidence, for adjustment.

"I understand what you mean," he declared as his eyes traveled from the
father to the daughter, "and I'm glad you let me see him."

Moving unobtrusively about, engaged in many small matters of
consideration, Brent recognized Bud Sellers and Jerry O'Keefe. He
himself remained until the burial had taken place, and was one of those
who lowered the coffin into the grave. But when those rites had been
concluded and another day had come Brent sought for Alexander to make
his adieus.

She was nowhere about the house and he went in search of her. He could
not bear to remain longer where he must endure the pain of her stricken
face. Of all the women he had ever known she stood forth as the most
unique--and in some ways the most impressive. She was undoubtedly the
most beautiful. He realized now that, though they were of different
and irreconcilable planes of life, there had never been a moment since
he had first seen her when he would not, save for his dragging on the
steady curb of reason, have fallen into a headlong infatuation. Now he
wished only to prove himself a serviceable friend.

When he had vainly sought her about the farm, it occurred to him to go
to the ragged "buryin' ground" and though he found her there he did not
obtrude upon her solitary vigil.

For Alexander was abandoning herself to one of those wild and
nerve-wracking tempests of weeping that come occasionally in a lifetime
to those who weep little. She had thrown herself face-down on the
ground beneath which Aaron McGivins slept, with arms outflung as though
seeking to reach into the grave and embrace him. As she had been both
son and daughter