of clothes and a
second-hand two-seated carriage, notwithstanding the sarcastic
reflection of his partner, who was making his own silent comment upon
this thing.

"The paternal business is _auskerspeelt_," he said to himself. "Ans is
goin' in on shape now. Well, it's all right; nobody's business but
ours. Let her go, Smith; but they won't be no talk in this neighbourhood
when they get hold of what's goin' on--oh, no!" He smiled grimly. "We
can stand it, I guess; but it'll be hard on her. Ans is a little too
previous. It's too soon to spring this trap on the poor little thing."

They stood side by side on the platform the next Monday when the train
rolled into the station at Boomtown, panting with fatigue from its long
run. Flaxen caught sight of Bert first as she sprang off the train, and
running to him, kissed him without much embarrassment. Then she looked
around, saying:

"Where's ol' pap? Didn't he----"

"Why, Flaxen, don't ye know me?" he cried out at her elbow.

She knew his voice, but his shaven face, so much more youthful, was so
strange that she knew him only by his eyes laughing down into hers.
Nevertheless she kissed him doubtfully.

"Oh, what've you done? You've shaved off your whiskers; you don't look
a bit natural. I----"

She was embarrassed, almost frightened, at the change in him. He
"looked so queer"; his fair, untroubled, smiling face and blond
moustache made him look younger than Bert.

"Nev' mind that! She'll grow again if y' like it better. Get int' this
new buggy--it's ours. They ain't no flies on us to-day; not many," said
Ans in high glee, elaborately assisting her to the carriage, not
appreciating the full meaning of the situation.

As they rode home he was extravagantly gay. He sat beside her, and she
drove, wild with delight at the prairie, the wheat, the gulls,
everything.

"Ain't no dust on our clo'es," said Ans, coughing, winking at Bert, and
brushing off with an elaborately finical gesture an imaginary fleck
from his knee and elbow. "Ain't we togged out? I guess nobody said
'boo' to us down to St. Peter, eh?"

"You like my clo'es?" said Flaxen, with charming directness.

"You bet! They're scrumptious."

"Well, they ought to be; they're my best, except my white dress. I
thought you'd like 'em; I wore 'em a-purpose."

"Like 'em? They're--you're jest as purty as a red lily er a wild rose
in the wheat--ahem! Ain't she, Bert, ol' boy? We're jest about starvin'
to death, we a