ive in town?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you go get her?"

"She don't want to come back, Jimmy."

Little Jim could not understand this. Yet he had often heard his mother
complain of their life on the homestead, and as often he had watched his
father sitting grimly at table, saying nothing in reply to his wife's
querulous complainings. The boy knew that his father had worked hard to
make a home. They had all worked hard. But, then, that had seemed the
only thing to do.

Presently Big Jim swung round as though he had made a decision. He
lighted the lamp in the kitchen and made a fire. Little Jim scurried out
to the well with a bucket. Little Jim was a hustler, never waiting to be
told what to do. His mother was gone. He did not know why. But he knew
that folks had to eat and sleep and work. While his father prepared
supper, Little Jim rolled up his own shirt-sleeves and washed
vigorously. Then he filled the two glasses on the table, laid the plates
and knives and forks, and finding nothing else to do in the house, just
then, he scurried out again and returned with his small arms filled with
firewood.

Big Jim glanced at him. "I guess we don't need any more wood, Jimmy.
We'll be leaving in the morning."

"What? Leavin' here?"

His father nodded.

"Goin' to town, dad?"

"No. South."

"Just us two, all alone?"

"Yes. Don't you want to go?"

"Sure! But I wish ma was comin', too."

Big Jim winced. "So do I, Jimmy. But I guess we can get along all right.
How would you like to visit Aunt Jane, down in Arizona?"

"Where them horn toads and stingin' lizards are?"

"Yes--and Gila monsters and all kinds of critters."

"Gee! Has Aunt Jane got any of 'em on her ranch?"

Big Jim forced a smile. "I reckon so."

Little Jim's face was eager. "Then I say, let's go. Mebby I can get to
shoot one. Huntin' is more fun than workin' all the time. I guess ma got
tired of workin', too. She said that was all she ever expected to do,
'long as we lived out here on the ranch. But she never told _me_ she was
goin' to quit."

"She didn't tell me, either, Jimmy. But you wouldn't understand."

Jimmy puckered his forehead. "I guess ma kind of throwed us down, didn't
she, dad?"

"We'll have to forget about it," said Big Jim slowly. "Down at Aunt
Jane's place in--"

"Somethin' 's burnin', dad!"

Big Jim turned to the stove. Little Jim gazed at his father's back
critically. There was something in the stoop of the broad shoulder