s must be the last ditch,"
she murmured. "Joe Thomson said he didn't _go_ mad, but he did _get_
mad. I'm mad clear to my Swaim toes, and I'm not going to take another
bump. It's been nothing but bumps ever since I reached the junction of
the main line with the Sage Brush branch back in June, and I'm tired of
it. Gene Wellington said the West got the better of his father. The East
seems to have gotten the best of his father's son."

Across her mind swept the thought of how easy Gene's way was being made
for him in the East, and how the way of the West for her had to be
fought over inch by inch.

"Neither East nor West shall get me." She tossed her head imperiously,
for Jim Swaim's chin, York Macpherson would have said, was in command,
and the dreamy eyes were flashing fire.

An hour later Ponk's gray runabout was spinning off the miles of the
trail down the Sage Brush, with Jerry Swaim's hands gripping the wheel
firmly, though her cheeks were pink with excitement. Where a road from
the west crossed the trail, the stream cut through a ledge of shale,
leaving a little bluffy bank on either side, with a bridge standing high
above the water.

Joe Thomson, in a big farm wagon, had just met his neighbor, Thelma
Ekblad, in her plain car, at the end of the bridge, when Jerry's horn
called her approach. Before they had time to shift aside the gray car
swept by with graceful curve, missing the edge of the bridge abutment by
an eyelash.

"Great Scott! Thelma, I didn't notice that this big gun of mine was
filling up all the road," Joe exclaimed. "That was the neatest curve I
ever saw. That's Ponk's car from New Eden, but only a civil engineer's
eye could have kept out of the river right there."

"The pretty girl who is visiting the Macphersons was the driver," Thelma
said.

"No! Was it, sure?" Joe queried, looking with keen eyes down the trail,
whither the gray runabout was gliding like a bird on the wing.

"Why, of course it was!" Thelma assured him, feeling suddenly how shabby
her own machine became in comparison. "I must go now. Come over and see
Paul when you can."

"I will. How is the baby?" Joe asked.

"Oh, splendid, and so much company for Paul!" Thelma declared.

"Yes, a baby is the preacher and the whole congregation sometimes. Let
me know if you need any help. Good-by."

So in neighborly good-will they separated, Joe to follow the gray car
down the trail, and Thelma to wonder briefly at the easy life of the