did appear to be some danger; for the wind that had
loved Seth from the first was apparently jealous of Celia. It tore at
her as though to toss her to unreachable distances in the way it
ripped the tumbleweeds from their small brittle stems and tossed them
away.

Seth looked at her profile, white from the fatigue of the journey, but
beautiful as alabaster; at the blue of her eyes; at the delicate taper
of her small white hands that from her birth had done only the
daintiest of service; at the small feet that had never once walked the
rough and sordid pathway of toil.

Beautiful! Beautiful!

His eyes caressed her. Except that he must hold the reins both arms
would have encircled her. As it was, she rested in the strong and
tender half-circle of one.

All at once the wind became frantic. It blew and blew!

Finding it impossible to tear Celia from the tender circling of that
arm, it wreaked its vengeance upon the tumbleweeds, broke them
fiercely from their stems, and sent them pell-mell over the prairie
before the tall blue cart, about it, at the sides of it, a fantastic
cortege, airily tumbling, tumbling, tumbling!

Yes. The wind was jealous of Celia.

Strong as it was, it failed of accomplishing its will, which would
have been to snatch her from the cart and toss her to the horizon in
company with the tumbleweeds. It shrieked its despair, the despair of
a jealous woman balked of her vengeance, tumultuously wild.

At last at about twilight, at the time of day when the prairie skies
are mellow with tints fit for a Turner and the prairie winds sough
with the tenderness of lullabies, resting for a period, in order to
prepare for the fury of the night, they came upon the forks of the two
rivers, sparsely sheltered by a few straggling and wind-blown trees.

Seth reined in the animal, sprang down over the high wheel of the cart
and helped Celia out.

"Darling," he said, "let me welcome you home!"

"Home," she repeated. "Where is it?"

For she saw before her only a slight elevation in the earth's surface,
a mound enlarged.

Going down a few steps, Seth opened wide the door of their dugout,
looking gladly up at her, standing stilly there, a picture daintily
silhouetted by the pearl pink of the twilit sky.

"Heah!" he smiled.

Celia stared down into the darkness of it as into a grave.

"A hole in the ground," she cried.

Then, as the beflowered home she had left rose mirage-like in the
window of her memory,