ew
quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided I can get
more fun for my money somewhere else."

Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other will! That
was why you came home!"

"No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with Olaf."

Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far ahead
of him. Nils dropped one word, "Damn!" and whipped after her; but she
leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her long riding
skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was just sinking
behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the shadows drew across the
fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely keep in sight the dark figure
on the road. When he overtook her he caught her horse by the bridle.
Norman reared, and Nils was frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat.

"Let me go, Nils Ericson!" she cried. "I hate you more than any of
them. You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of you--to make me
suffer in every possible way."

She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils set his
teeth and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the deserted
road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky.

They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into
clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world. As he
turned across the sand creek, he looked up at the North Star and smiled,
as if there were an understanding between them. His mother scolded him
for being late for supper.

V

On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt sleeves and carpet
slippers, was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled porcelain
pipe with a hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat under the
cherry tree, reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She
had worn a white muslin dress under her riding habit, and the leaves
of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The
black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund
was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of
badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner,
when he heard a knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and
unlatched the little door that led into the street. He did not call Nils
by name, but caught him by the hand and dragged him in. Clara stiffened
and the colour deepened under her dark skin. Nils, too,