art of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"

What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
Frank Congdon--he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
gambler."

She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
saloon--when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
the saloon money--and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."

"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."

She ignored the implied compliment and went on:

"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
know it?"

"Does he complain?"

"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits--but I'm
afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
game."

In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
handsome figure before his--accident."

Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
his trade--and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
of the whole business--for me--I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
sick, and my bro