nds
of things he shouldn't eat. Where was her baby? A fresh spasm of longing
for Lovin Child drove her from the cabin. Find him she would, and that
no matter how cunningly Bud had hidden him away.

On a rope stretched between a young cottonwood tree in full leaf and
a scaly, red-barked cedar, clothes that had been washed were flapping
lazily in the little breeze. Marie stopped and looked at them. A man's
shirt and drawers, two towels gray for want of bluing, a little shirt
and a nightgown and pair of stockings--and, directly in front of Marie,
a small pair of blue overalls trimmed with red bands, the blue showing
white fiber where the color had been scrubbed out of the cloth, the two
knees flaunting patches sewed with long irregular stitches such as a man
would take.

Bud and Lovin Child. As in the cabin, so here she felt the individuality
in their belongings. Last night she had been tormented with the fear
that there might be a wife as well as a baby boy in Bud's household.
Even the evidence of the mail order, that held nothing for a woman and
that was written by Bud's hand, could scarcely reassure her. Now she
knew beyond all doubt that she had no woman to reckon with, and the
knowledge brought relief of a sort.

She went up and touched the little overalls wistfully, laid her cheek
against one little patch, ducked under the line, and followed a crooked
little path that led up the creek. She forgot all about her horse,
which looked after her as long as she was in sight, and then turned and
trotted back the way it had come, wondering, no doubt, at the foolish
faith this rider had in him.

The path led up along the side of the flat, through tall grass and all
the brilliant blossoms of a mountain meadow in June. Great, graceful
mountain lilies nodded from little shady tangles in the bushes.
Harebells and lupines, wild-pea vines and columbines, tiny, gnome-faced
pansies, violets, and the daintier flowering grasses lined the way with
odorous loveliness. Birds called happily from the tree tops. Away up
next the clouds an eagle sailed serene, alone, a tiny boat breasting the
currents of the sky ocean.

Marie's rage cooled a little on that walk. It was so beautiful for Lovin
Child, up here in this little valley among the snow-topped mountains;
so sheltered. Yesterday's grind in that beehive of a department store
seemed more remote than South Africa. Unconsciously her first nervous
pace slackened. She found herself taking