led night and day.

Day after day the settlers got their wagons together and loaded up, and
then moved down the slope into the fair valley of the sleepy James.
Mrs. Cap Burdon did a rushing business as a hotel-keeper, while Cap
sold hay and oats at rates which made the land-seekers gasp.

"I'm not out here f'r my health," was all the explanation he ever made.

Soon all around the little shanty of Anson and Bert other shanties were
built and filled with young, hopeful, buoyant souls. The railway
surveyors came through, locating a town about three and another about
twelve miles away, and straightway the bitter rivalry between Boomtown
and Belleplain began. Belleplain being their town, Bert and Anson swore
by Belleplain, and correspondingly derided the claims of Boomtown.

With the coming of spring began the fiercest toil of the
pioneers--breaking the sod, building, harvesting, ploughing; then the
winter again, though not so hard to bear; then the same round of work
again. So the land was settled, the sod was turned over; sod shanties
gave way to little frame houses; the tide of land-seekers passed on,
the boom burst, but the real workers, like Wood and Gearheart, went
patiently, steadily on, founding a great State.

CHAPTER VI.

A QUESTION OF DRESS.

One morning eight years later Flaxen left the home of Gearheart and
Wood with old Doll and the buggy, bound for Belleplain after groceries
for harvest. She drove with a dash, her hat on the back of her head.
She was seemingly intent on getting all there was possible out of a
chew of kerosene gum, which she had resolved to throw away upon
entering town, intending to get a new supply.

She had thriven on Western air and gum, and though hardly more than
fourteen years of age, her bust and limbs revealed the grace of
approaching womanhood, however childish her short dress and braided
hair might still show her to be. Her face was large and decidedly of
Scandinavian type, fair in spite of wind and sun, and broad at the
cheekbones. Her eyes were as blue and clear as winter ice.

As she rode along she sang as well as she could without neglecting the
gum, sitting at one end of the seat like a man, the reins held
carelessly in her left hand, notwithstanding the swift gait of the
horse, who always knew when Flaxen was driving. She met a friend on the
road, and said, "Hello!" pulling up her horse with one strong hand.

"Can't stop," she explained; "got to go over to th