r satisfy themselves with one
man, I reckon."

"Thet's atter they've done picked out ther one, fer dead shore," was
her calm retort. "An' mebby even then hit hain't frum choice."

A satirist might have derived pleasure from that situation of Alexander
rejecting conventional pleas, urged by Jack Halloway.

The big man had halted and stood looking down at her. His hands
gradually closed, then tautly clenched themselves. For a moment he
contemplated throwing away caution and seeking once more to coerce her
responsiveness in the imprisonment of his sudden embrace but he
hesitated. Then while he still held his silence, Alexander spoke with
that full and inevasive candor which was a cardinal of her nature.

"Ther gospel-truth is, Jack, I don't know yit whether I loves ye or
hates ye, an' I kain't help mistrustin' ye somehow. I mout es well
tell ye ther truth es ter lie ter ye."

"Mistrust me!" he echoed, incredulously. "Ye knows full well I loves
ye. Ye kain't misdoubt thet!"

She shook her head. The sun was burnishing her hair into an aura, and
the clear light shone searchingly on the fresh bloom of her cheek, the
violet of her eyes and the crimson of her lips--revealing no flaw. She
was all lovely and young, and yet Brent thought, she was alarmingly,
almost paradoxically clever.

"Ye acts like ye loves me," was her seriously voiced response, "but
somehow thar seems ter be a kind of greediness erbout hit. Take Bud
Sellers fer instance--he's jest ther opposite. Thar hain't no greed in
him."

Halloway might have retorted that also there was in Bud nothing to
which her flaming personality could ever respond. His was the worship
of a dumb and faithful beast. But he held his peace while the girl
went steadily on.

"I oft-times takes myself ter task fer thet suspicion, because hit
don't seem far ter feel thet-a-way an' not know no reason."

She looked at him questioningly and very gravely, as one resolved upon
a full but difficult confession.

"I hain't nuver seed ye foller no reg'lar work. Ye hain't doin'
nothin' hyar now but jest hangin' around." She became halting there,
for she had reached the point of greatest embarrassment, but she forced
herself ahead.

"I hain't no millionaire myself, but we've got a good farm, and we
don't owe no man nothin'." Once more she broke off before, with an
inflexible frankness, she finished up. "Jack, thar's been times when
I've wondered ef hit wasn't my bein' es