bilities of the
Sage Brush Valley. The blue eyes of Lesa Swaim's daughter were full of
dreamy light as she paused to picture here the possibilities of her own
possessions.

At the crest of a low ridge the road forked, one branch wandering in and
out among the small willow-trees along the river, and the other cutting
clean and broad across the rougher open land swelling away from the
narrowed valley.

"Here's something Mr. Junius Brutus Ponk left out of his map. I'll take
the rim road; it looks the more inviting," Jerry decided, because the
way of least resistance had been her life-road always.

This one grew narrow and clung close to the water's side. Its sandy bed
was damp and firm, and the slender trees on either side here and there
almost touched branches overhead. Mile after mile it seemed to stretch
without another given landmark to show Jerry her destination. Beyond
where the road curved sharply around a thicket of small trees and
underbrush Jerry halted her car. Before her the waters of the river
rippled into foam against a rocky ledge that helped to form a deep hole
above it. Below, the stream was shallow, and in dry midsummer here
offered rough stepping-stones across it. It was a lonely spot, with the
river on one side and a tangle of bushes and tall weeds on the other,
and the curves along the roadway, filled with underbrush and low timber
shutting off the view up-stream and down-stream.

At the coming of Jerry's car a man who had been kneeling over some
fishing-lines at the river's edge rose up beside the road, brushing the
wet sand from his clothes, and staring at her. He was small and old and
stooped and fuzzy, and thoroughly unpretty to see.

"It's the Teddy Bear who 'sat in the sand and the sun' coming up from
that horrid railroad junction. Who's afraid of bears? I'll ask him how
to find my lost empire."

Jerry did not reflect that it was the unconscious effect of this humble
creature's thoughtfulness for her that made her unafraid of him in this
lonely spot. Reflection was not yet one of her active psychological
processes.

"I want to find a ranch-house by a big bend in the river where it turns
east," Jerry said, looking at the man much as she would look at the bend
in the river--merely for the information to be furnished. He pushed his
brown cap back from his forehead and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully
through his thin sunburnt hair.

"It's Joe's place, eh?" the high, quavering voice squeakin