re than I can handle this year."

"Then why didn't you keep him?"

"Martial was a little mulish, and I'm afraid I'm troubled with a
shortness of temper now and then. We had a difference of opinion as to
the best way to drive the mower into the slough, and he didn't seem to
recognize that he should have deferred to me. Unfortunately, as the boys
were standing by, I had to insist upon his getting out of the saddle."

He had turned a little further towards her, and Agatha noticed that
there was a bruise upon one side of his face. After what he had just
told her the sight of it jarred upon her, though she would not admit
that there was any reason why it should. She could not deny that on the
prairie a resort to physical force might be warranted by the lack of any
other remedy, but it hurt her to think of him as descending to an open
brawl with one of his men.

Then it occurred to her that the other man in all probability had
suffered more, and this brought her a certain sense of satisfaction
which she admitted was more or less barbarous. She had made it clear
that Wyllard was nothing to her, but she could not help watching him as
he lay back against the hay. His wide hat set off his bronzed face,
which, though not exactly handsome, was pleasant and reassuring. The
dusty shirt and old blue trousers accentuated the long, clean lines of
his figure, and she realized with a faint sense of anger that his mere
physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, stirred her heart. She
recognized a feeling to be judiciously checked. After all, in spite of
her denial of it, she was endowed with power to love as women close to
nature love, with an emotion all-encompassing and not subject to cold
reasoning.

They talked of trifles of no great consequence, for both of them were
conscious of the necessity for a certain reticence; and when they
reached the homestead Agatha joined Mrs. Hastings, while Wyllard pitched
the hay off the wagon. He came in to supper presently with about half of
his men, and they all sat down together in the long, barely furnished
room. Wyllard was unusually animated. He drew Mrs. Hastings into a bout
of whimsical badinage, which was interrupted when a beat of hoofs rose
from the prairie.

"Somebody's riding in; I wonder what he wants," remarked Wyllard. "I
certainly don't expect anybody."

The drumming of hoofs rang more sharply through the open windows, for
the sod was hard and dry. It stopped suddenly an