with
her apologetic little smile. "What could take the place of a home with
real nice things in it? I got a house up near the Landing with a carpet
in every room. I just love to buy things for it. You see I never had what
you might call a regular house until just lately. This trip I bought a
pink-and-gold chiny washin' set; and a down comfort for the best room. I
never could tire of fixin' it up. We'll pass there to-morrow afternoon.
I'd just love to have you step in--"

Grylls laughed boisterously.

"Ah-h, shut up, Nell!" muttered the dark young man beside her.

"Thank you, I'd like to see it," said Natalie, with a flash of the blue
eyes.

They had now left the town behind; and were rolling, or rather bumping,
over the prairie. Here, it is not an empty plain, but a series of
natural, park-like meadows, broken by graceful clumps of poplar and
willow. On a prairie trail when the wheels begin to bite through the
sod, and sink into ruts, a new track is made beside the old--there is
plenty of room; and in turn another and another, spreading wide on each
side, crossing and interweaving like a tangled skein of black cotton
flung down in the green.

Natalie had never seen such luxuriant greenness; such diverse and
plentiful wild flowers. Nell pointed out the brilliant fire-weed, blending
from crimson to purple, the wild sunflower, the lovely painted-cup,
old-rose in colour; and there were other strange and showy plants she
could not name. Occasionally they passed a log cabin, gayly whitewashed,
and with its sod roof sprouting greenly. These dwellings, though crude,
fulfilled the great aim of architecture; they were a part of the landscape
itself.

When they stopped at one of these places for dinner, Garth watched
Natalie narrowly to see how she would receive her first taste of rough
fare. But far from quailing at the salt pork, beans and bitter tea, she
ate with as much gusto as if it had always been her portion. "She'll
do," he thought approvingly.

Afterward as they toiled up a long, sandy rise in the full heat of the
afternoon sun, Paul, the old dandy, had leisure while his horses walked
to devote to his passengers. He was pleased as a child at the interest
shown by Garth and Natalie in his anecdotes. Turning to them now, he
pointed to a high mound topped by a splendid pine standing by itself,
and said:

"Cannibal Hill. Used to be an Indian called Swift had his lodge there. A
fine figger of a man too; high-chest