eamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft
light of romance illumined them now.

"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything
is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all
right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke
off suddenly.

"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how
much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of
hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and
you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten
through without you."

"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I--I think I must go now."

Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very
earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York
Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep
over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words
to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with
nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul.

At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and
all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling
dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching
Joe's arm with her slender fingers.

"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave
now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see
how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you
go?"

But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely:

"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find
me beyond the blowout."

The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it
spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who
loved her must forget its very existence.

There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of
gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town.

"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want
you," Jerry said, slowly.

In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark
eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it
seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the
bough of the oak-grove.

During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young
ranchman strode away and t