few
things," York concluded.

"Jerry, there are not many women like this Norwegian farmer girl who is
working her way through the State University down at Lawrence. A few
years ago her brother Paul was in love with a girl up the Sage Brush,
the daughter of a prosperous, stupid, stingy old ranchman. Paul was
chewed up in a mowing-machine one day when the horses got scared and ran
away, but his girl was true to him in spite of her father's objections
to him. Then came a woman--a sharp-tongued gossip (she's over yonder now
by the side gate)--who managed to stir up trouble purely for the
infernal joy of gossip, I suppose, between this girl and Thelma. I
needn't go into detail; you probably do not care much for the general
outline."

"Go on," Jerry commanded.

"Well, it was the rough course of true love over again. Between the
father and the sister the match was broken off, and before things could
be reconciled the girl's father forced the marriage of his daughter to a
worthless scamp who posed as a rich man, or an heir expectant to riches.
The Ekblads are hard-working farmer folk. When it was too late the
misunderstanding was cleared up. The rich fellow soon proved a fraud
and a rascal and a wife-deserter. And the girl came home with her baby.
Her father, as I said, was too stingy to hire help. So this girl-mother
overworked in threshing-time, and--was buried this afternoon up the Sage
Brush--old man Poser's daughter, Nell Belkap. The Ekblads have just come
from the funeral. Old Poser has refused to care for Nell's baby and
intended to put it in an orphan asylum. Thelma Ekblad brought it home
with her. It was in her arms just now, and she's going to keep it and
adopt it. When she's away at school--she has a year yet before she
graduates--that crippled brother, Paul, will take care of it. All of
which is out of your line, Jerry, but interesting to us in the valley
here."

As York paused and looked at Jerry, all that Stellar Bahrr had said of
him and the Poser girl swept through her mind. Not the least meanness of
a lie is in its infectious poisoning power.

"It is very interesting. I wonder how she can take care of that baby.
Babies are so impossible," Jerry said, musingly.

"We were all impossibles once. Some of us are still improbables," York
replied.

Jerry looked up at him quickly. "Not altogether hopeless, maybe. Thelma
is doing this for her brother's sake, I can see that. And the story has
a sweeter side than