squanders thousands of
these rich seeds in the wilderness of life.

He took away with him a volume of Shakespeare. "I've saw good plays of
his," he remarked.

Kind Mrs. Taylor in her cabin next door watched him ride off in the
sleet, bound for the lonely mountain trail.

"If that girl don't get ready to take him pretty soon," she observed to
her husband, "I'll give her a piece of my mind."

Taylor was astonished. "Is he thinking of her?" he inquired.

"Lord, Mr. Taylor, and why shouldn't he?"

Mr. Taylor scratched his head and returned to his newspaper.

It was warm--warm and beautiful upon Bear Creek. Snow shone upon
the peaks of the Bow Leg range; lower on their slopes the pines were
stirring with a gentle song; and flowers bloomed across the wide plains
at their feet.

Molly and her Virginian sat at a certain spring where he had often
ridden with her. On this day he was bidding her farewell before
undertaking the most important trust which Judge Henry had as yet given
him. For this journey she had provided him with Sir Walter Scott's
Kenilworth. Shakespeare he had returned to her. He had bought
Shakespeare for himself. "As soon as I got used to readin' it," he had
told her, "I knowed for certain that I liked readin' for enjoyment."

But it was not of books that he had spoken much to-day. He had not
spoken at all. He had bade her listen to the meadow-lark, when its song
fell upon the silence like beaded drops of music. He had showed her
where a covey of young willow-grouse were hiding as their horses passed.
And then, without warning, as they sat by the spring, he had spoken
potently of his love.

She did not interrupt him. She waited until he was wholly finished.

"I am not the sort of wife you want," she said, with an attempt of
airiness.

He answered roughly, "I am the judge of that." And his roughness was a
pleasure to her, yet it made her afraid of herself. When he was absent
from her, and she could sit in her cabin and look at Grandmother Stark,
and read home letters, then in imagination she found it easy to play
the part which she had arranged to play regarding him--the part of the
guide, and superior, and indulgent companion. But when he was by her
side, that part became a difficult one. Her woman's fortress was shaken
by a force unknown to her before. Sam Bannett did not have it in him to
look as this man could look, when the cold lustre of his eyes grew hot
with internal fire. What color they