ever she
could make corn-dodgers for him.

"I think you are sick. _Something_ is the matter with you?"

"Yes," he changed his position a little on the bench, "something is the
matter with me."

"Well, why don't you go on and say what?" She put the skillet on some of
the coals and the coffee-pot on the skillet, being too busy to look
around at him.

"Oh!"--he wanted to tell her, but his pride saved him in time. She was
in rich in gold and land and cattle, in ore, too now; and he? He didn't
know how he was going to fill his meal sack the next time it was empty.
That was where matters had got with him. "I think I won't go on and say
what, after all; let's not bother. Let's just be happy for the minute.
That's something I have learned out here in Missouri, just to be happy
when you get the chance, minute by minute, no matter what sort of hours
are to come after. This, now, is so much more than I had hoped for. I
hadn't really hoped to see you again before----"

"Before what?"

"Well, a fellow can't go on like this forever, can he? I expect I am
going to cut all this."

"_What!_ And leave Uncle Bernique?"

"Uncle Bernique can hold the claim alone, you know. And I'm wasting hope
and energy here. What's the use in staying longer?"

She was very busy with the bacon now and he did not see her face. There
was a wild quiver on it, of grief, fright, dismay.

"You ought not to leave Uncle Bernique and Piney, I am sure of that,"
she said at last earnestly, almost commandingly.

"Heigh-ho! I think Bernique is getting restless, too. He will be
drifting off soon on that tidal wave of ore fever that comes over him;
Piney has been gone for a great while. It's pretty lonely. It's getting
on my nerves. Of course I shouldn't pet my nerves if I had any hope
about the run here, but I haven't. I think that the work we have carried
on is fairly conclusive."

"But wait a minute, didn't you buy this land? Didn't you put some money
in it?"

Steering laughed blithely. "Not much," he said. The thing that made him
laugh was the fact that though it was not much it was all that he had,
and it was, in a way, amusing to consider how he was to get away from
Canaan. Looking at Sally Madeira, who suggested luxury nonchalantly,
trouble about ways and means was bound to be untimely and laughable.
Indeed, looking at Sally Madeira all troubles were more or less
laughable.

"You haven't gone to Europe?" he reminded her, after he had drunk her