rt," he cried.
"Be yourself. Just yourself. The frank, honest woman I know and love.
If ever the shadows you fear come to worry us, they'll have to be of
your own creating. We have nothing to fear from the future, nothing at
all. We'll just drive right on down the clear trail of life. It's
only in the byways there's any ugly dumps. Look!" He suddenly flung
out one arm, pointing ahead where the great Obar plains rolled away
toward the hills below them. "That's the ranch. There. That one
there is Bud's homestead, and the other to the right's your--our home.
Say, it's good to see--mighty good!"

* * * * * *

Nan gazed upon the result of her labors and decided that it was good.
Bud was observing her in his unobtrusive way. They were together in
the new parlor of the home which Jeff had had reconstructed under Nan's
most careful supervision.

The girl had put forth her greatest effort, greater even than she
herself realized, for it had been inspired by a desire that Jeff and
his wife should never realize the pain and bitter disappointment she
had endured.

Now, as she surveyed each detail in her final tour of inspection, she
convinced herself that nothing, nothing she could think of had been
forgotten. Even the city-bred Elvine could find no fault with any
detail of it.

She and Bud were standing side by side rather like two children gazing
in awed wonder at some undreamed of splendor suddenly discovered in a
familiar playground, every square foot of which they had believed
themselves familiar with.

"I--don't think I've forgotten a thing," Nan said, in a tone subdued by
her weight of responsibility.

"Not a thing," agreed Bud, with a perfect disregard for any
consequences his statement might have.

He was utterly unchanged. He had made no preparation to receive the
bride and bridegroom in their home. He was just the cattleman nothing
could change him from. His gray flannel shirt was agape over his
sunburned chest. His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious
spurs clanked. Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head
was innocent of all extra combing. With Nan it was different. She had
striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she
belonged. She was dressed with consummate care. Every jealous feeling
of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were
that her successful rival should be unable to sneer at o