nd. There was a rattle at the number board. Nan
understood. She waited. Then it seemed as if the crowd had timed
itself for one unanimous shout.

"Sassafras!"

It came with a sort of electric thrill for the girl. In one wild
moment all her shadows seemed to clear.

"Sassafras!" she cried.

And her father's deep gray eyes beamed down upon her

"You've sure guessed right, little gal," he said. "An' I--hope it was
dollar time."

At that instant Jeff thrust his way through the crowd, and the warmth
of his smile flooded the girl's heart with happiness.

"Say, Nan," he cried, holding out his hand with an enthusiasm that was
hardly to be expected in one who has lost, "you got us all beat a mile.
You surely have. Sassafras. My old Sassafras. Say, who'd 'a' thought
it?" Nan's hand remained clasped in his, and she seemed to have no
desire to withdraw it. Jeff looked round into Bud's face. "Do you
know what she's won? Do you, Nan?" he went on to the girl again.

Nan laughed. It was all she wanted to do.

"Not a notion, Jeff. I handed you all Daddy gave me. How much was it,
Daddy?"

"Five hundred."

Nan's eyes widened in alarm.

"Five hundred? And I bet it all on--Sassafras!"

"And you've won nearly five thousand," cried Jeff, stirred completely
out of himself at the girl's success.

"I--I must have been--crazy," she declared, in an awed voice.

Bud laughed, but his eyes were full of a sympathy that had no meaning
for the others.

"Not crazy, little Nan. Jest good grit. Guess Jeff didn't see the
pool waitin' around for him to pick up. Wal, guess ther's a heap o'
folk like him. You played right out for a win, an' you won--by a head."

CHAPTER XI

ELVINE VAN BLOOREN

It was the last day of the Cattle Week. A week which, for at least
three people, was fraught with something in the nature of epoch-making
events. All that the simple heart of Nan Tristram had looked forward
to, yearned for, had been denied her from the first moment she had
beheld that unmistakable lightening up of Jeff's eyes on his meeting
with Elvine van Blooren. It had been a revelation of dread. Her own
secret hopes had been set shaking to their very foundations. And from
that moment on, during the rest of the week, brick by brick the whole
edifice of them had been set tumbling. By the last day nothing but a
pile of debris remained.

Holiday! It had been a good deal less than holiday. She had looked
forwa