hief trustee, with a wave of his hand,
after he had explained all the difficulties and expatiated on all the joys
of the Bear Canyon school, "what we want is a teacher who can start things
right. A heap depends on the startin' things have in this world, I've
noticed. Now you look like a spunky young lady. Ain't afraid o' big boys,
are you?"

Mary, with the memory of Eben Judd's daughter and the biggest boy fresh in
her mind, hesitated. Bear Canyon might offer problems too big for her
inexperienced hands. Then she summoned an extra amount of dignity.

"It surely isn't necessary to thrash them, Mr. Wilson, if you can get
along with them some other way. No, I'm not at all afraid of them. Are
there many big ones?"

Mr. Wilson considered for a moment. No, there were not many. Ben Jarvis'
big boy Allan was the worst, and even he wasn't bad if he had enough to
do. The trouble was he led all the others, and if he once got "contrary,"
trouble arose. Mary inwardly resolved that he should not get "contrary."

"Now up here in Bear Canyon," Mr. Wilson further remarked, "we're strong
on figurin'. How are you on arithmetic?"

Mary's heart fell. Dismal visions of cube root and compound proportion
came to torment her. Her ship, sailing smoothly but a moment since, had
apparently struck a reef. Then a never-failing imagination came to her
rescue. She saw Priscilla solving her problems in the evening at the
table.

"Arithmetic isn't exactly my specialty, Mr. Wilson," she said brightly.
"That is, I don't love it as I do other studies; but I assure you I shall
be quite able to teach it."

The chief trustee rose from his seat, knocked the ashes from his pipe
into the fire-place, and took his hat.

"I guess you're hired for the week, then," said he, "at twenty dollars.
I'll stop in at Ben Jarvis' on my way home and tell him. School begins
Monday morning at nine. I may drop in myself durin' the week to see how
things is goin'. Good-mornin'."

Mary stood in the middle of the room, paying no heed to the curious voices
which called her from the porch. She saw the chief trustee ride past the
window on his way to tell Ben Jarvis that she was elected. She pictured
the incorrigible Allan Jarvis spending the Sabbath in the invention of
mischief. It had come too suddenly. She could not realize that she was
actually a Wyoming school-teacher. Now the time which she had thought to
be four years' distant had come--the time to begin to realize the