and a white
flash of teeth. "If you weren't smoking a cigarette I'd ask you if your
mother knew you're out, Mr. Babe-in-the-Sandbank."

"Say," he began, with transparently feigned seriousness. "I want to ask
you something, if you don't mind. Now, of course, I don't want to hurt
your feelin's or nothin', but just the same there's something important
I'd like to know."

"Well, what is it?" she inquired, after a fruitless wait.

"Well, it's just this, Saxon. I like you like anything an' all that,
but here's night come on, an' we're a thousand miles from anywhere,
and--well, what I wanta know is: are we really an' truly married, you
an' me?"

"Really and truly," she assured him. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing; but I'd kind a-forgotten, an' I was gettin' embarrassed,
you know, because if we wasn't, seein' the way I was brought up, this'd
be no place--"

"That will do you," she said severely. "And this is just the time and
place for you to get in the firewood for morning while I wash up the
dishes and put the kitchen in order."

He started to obey, but paused to throw his arm about her and draw
her close. Neither spoke, but when he went his way Saxon's breast was
fluttering and a song of thanksgiving breathed on her lips.

The night had come on, dim with the light of faint stars. But these had
disappeared behind clouds that seemed to have arisen from nowhere. It
was the beginning of California Indian summer. The air was warm, with
just the first hint of evening chill, and there was no wind.

"I've a feeling as if we've just started to live," Saxon said, when
Billy, his firewood collected, joined her on the blankets before the
fire. "I've learned more to-day than ten years in Oakland." She drew a
long breath and braced her shoulders. "Farming's a bigger subject than I
thought."

Billy said nothing. With steady eyes he was staring into the fire, and
she knew he was turning something over in his mind.

"What is it," she asked, when she saw he had reached a conclusion, at
the same time resting her hand on the back of his.

"Just been framin' up that ranch of ourn," he answered. "It's all
well enough, these dinky farmlets. They'll do for foreigners. But we
Americans just gotta have room. I want to be able to look at a hilltop
an' know it's my land, and know it's my land down the other side an' up
the next hilltop, an' know that over beyond that, down alongside some
creek, my mares are most likely grazin', an' their little co