to disappointments," Parker replied, in resigned
calm.

Elsie felt the need of justifying herself. "Are you complaining? Am I
the assistant driver, or am I not? If I am, here is where I belong."

"When I was coaching in Scotland once--" began Lawson.

"Oh, never mind Scotland!" interrupted Elsie. "See that chain of peaks?
Aren't they gorgeous! Do we camp there?"

"Yes," replied Curtis. "Just where that fan-shaped belt of timber
begins, I hope to set our tent. The agency is just between those dark
ridges."

"It is strange," Elsie said, after a pause. "Last year I was _wondering_
at everything; now I am looking for familiar things."

"That is the second stage," he answered. "The third will be sympathy."

"What will the fourth be?"

"Affection."

"And the fifth?"

"Devotion."

She laughed. "You place too high a value on your Western land."

"I admit there is to me great charm in these barren foot-hills and the
great divide they lead up to," he soberly answered.

As they talked, the swift little horses drummed along the hard road, and
by the time the agency flag-pole came in view they had passed over their
main points of difference, and were chatting gayly on topics not
controversial. Elsie was taking her turn with the reins, her face
flushed with the joy and excitement of it, while Jennie and Mrs.
Parker, shrieking with pretended fear, clung to their seats with
frenzied clasp.

Curtis was as merry as a boy, and his people, seeing him come in smiling
and alert, looked at each other in amazement, and Crow Wing said:

"Our Little Father has found a squaw at last."

Whereas, as her lover, Curtis had been careful to consider the effect of
every word, he now went to Elsie's service as frankly as Lawson himself,
and his thoughtfulness touched her deeply. Her old studio had been put
in order, and contained all needful furniture, and her sleeping
apartment looked very clean and very comfortable indeed.

Jennie apologized. "Of course, it's like camping compared to your own
splendid home, but George said you wouldn't mind that, being an artist.
He has an idea an artist can sleep in a palace one night and a pigsty
the next, and rejoice."

"He isn't so very far wrong," Elsie valiantly replied. "Of course, the
pigsty is a little bit extreme. This is good enough for any one. You are
very kind," she added, softly. "It was good of him to take so much
trouble."

"George is the best man I ever knew," replied Jennie.