e,' he says.

"'So you like my looks, eh?' I says, kind of innocent.

"'What difference does that make? Want you to saw that wood before
Saturday,' he says, real sharp. Common workman going and getting fresh
with a fifth of a million dollars all walking around in a hand-me-down
fur coat!

"'Here's the difference it makes,' I says, just to devil him. 'How do
you know I like YOUR looks?' Maybe he didn't look sore! 'Nope,' I says,
thinking it all over, 'I don't like your application for a loan. Take it
to another bank, only there ain't any,' I says, and I walks off on him.

"Sure. Probably I was surly--and foolish. But I figured there had to be
ONE man in town independent enough to sass the banker!"

He hitched out of his chair, made coffee, gave Carol a cup, and talked
on, half defiant and half apologetic, half wistful for friendliness
and half amused by her surprise at the discovery that there was a
proletarian philosophy.

At the door, she hinted:

"Mr. Bjornstam, if you were I, would you worry when people thought you
were affected?"

"Huh? Kick 'em in the face! Say, if I were a sea-gull, and all over
silver, think I'd care what a pack of dirty seals thought about my
flying?"

It was not the wind at her back, it was the thrust of Bjornstam's scorn
which carried her through town. She faced Juanita Haydock, cocked
her head at Maud Dyer's brief nod, and came home to Bea radiant. She
telephoned Vida Sherwin to "run over this evening." She lustily played
Tschaikowsky--the virile chords an echo of the red laughing philosopher
of the tar-paper shack.

(When she hinted to Vida, "Isn't there a man here who amuses himself by
being irreverent to the village gods--Bjornstam, some such a name?"
the reform-leader said "Bjornstam? Oh yes. Fixes things. He's awfully
impertinent.")

IV

Kennicott had returned at midnight. At breakfast he said four several
times that he had missed her every moment.

On her way to market Sam Clark hailed her, "The top o' the mornin'
to yez! Going to stop and pass the time of day mit Sam'l? Warmer, eh?
What'd the doc's thermometer say it was? Say, you folks better come
round and visit with us, one of these evenings. Don't be so dog-gone
proud, staying by yourselves."

Champ Perry the pioneer, wheat-buyer at the elevator, stopped her in
the post-office, held her hand in his withered paws, peered at her
with faded eyes, and chuckled, "You are so fresh and blooming, my dear.
Mother w