self, and only genius could have put so many quaint and
attractive touches to such common surroundings as now embellished the
little four-roomed house in the bend of Grass River.

Doctor Carey tied his horses to the post beside the trail, and, lifting
Leigh from the buggy, he said:

"Uncle Jim is up there waiting for you, and oh, so glad, so glad to have
you come. Go and meet him, Leigh."

Leigh smoothed her little gray wool frock down with her dainty little
hands. Then, pushing back the gray cap with its scarlet quill from her
forehead where the golden hair fell in soft rings, she passed up the
grassy way to meet Jim Shirley. He could never have looked bigger and
handsomer than he did at that moment. In his eyes all the heart hunger of
years seemed centered as he watched the little six-year-old child coming
towards him.

Just before reaching the doorway, she paused, and with that clear
penetration only a little child possesses, she looked up into the strong
man's face.

"Uncle Jim. My Uncle Jim," she cried. "I can love you always."

Jim gathered her close in his arms, and she clung about his neck, softly
patting his brown cheek as they passed into the house. While all unseen,
the light of love went in with them, a light that should never fade from
the hearthstone, driving loneliness and sorrow from it, far away.

Leigh Shirley's coming marked an epoch in the annals of the Grass River
settlement, for her uncle often declared that he could remember only two
events in the West before that time: the coming of Mrs. Aydelot and the
grasshopper raid. With Leigh in his home, he almost forgot that he had
ever been sad-hearted. This loving little child was such a constant source
of interest and surprise. She was so innocently plain-spoken and
self-dependent sometimes, and such a strange little dreamer of dreams at
other times. She would drive a shrewd bargain for whatever she
wanted--some more of Uncle Jim's good cookies, or a ride all alone on the
biggest pony, or a two-days' visit at the Aydelot ranch, scrupulously
rendering back value received of her own wares--kisses, or washing all the
supper dishes for her tired uncle, or staying away from her play to watch
that the chickens did not scratch in the garden.

But there were times when she would go alone to the bend in the river and
people her world with folk of her own creation and live with them and for
them. Chief among them all was a certain Prince Quippi, who woul