don't change easy, Elvie," he protested. "I kind of get things
hard. It's my way, and it's no doing of mine. Life's a full-sized
proposition, and I don't guess we can see far through it. But I can't
imagine a thing that could come before you in my thoughts."

"I'd like to think that. I'd like to feel that," Elvine returned. She
was smiling up into his eyes. "You see, Jeff, I was kind of thinking.
We're young now. We've been together just six weeks. Maybe you'll get
used to me later. Men do get used to women till they become sort of
part of the furniture. Oh, I guess their love goes right on, but--but
they wouldn't feel like starting in to fence in the North Pole, or--or
hitch up Niagara to their wife's buggy just because she fancied that
way. Say, Jeff, when I lose your love I just lose everything in the
world. You--you won't ever let me lose it, will you?"

Jeff shook his head, and smiled in the confidence of feelings.

"Don't ever talk that way. Don't ever think like that," he urged her.
Then, as their horses ambled side by side up the last gentle incline
before they dropped down to the great plain of the Rainbow Hill Valley,
which was the setting of the Obar Ranch, he drew nearer and reached out
one arm and gently encircled her waist. "Guess you're feeling like me
just now, Evie. Do you know what I mean? We're getting home.
Home--yours and mine. Well, say, that home is in my mind now, and it's
full to the brim of thoughts of you. You're in it--everywhere. You're
part of it. You're just part of me. I can't see any future without
you. It don't seem to me there could be any. I don't doubt. I guess
the thought of it don't scare me a thing. Maybe with you it's
different. Maybe you're scared such happiness can't last. But I tell
you it can--it will. You're with me now and always, and I can't see a
shadow that could come between us."

"None? No, none, none!"

The woman forced conviction into her final denial, and, for a moment,
she permitted herself to yield to the reassuring embrace. Then she
started up and released herself.

"Oh, Jeff!" she cried. "I just pray all the time that nothing shall
ever rob me of your love. Night and day I pray that way. If I were to
lose you, I--I think nothing else would much matter."

The man smiled with supreme confidence. They had reached the top of
the hill, and he set his horse into a canter.

"You're just going to live right on--for me, sweethea