atious guardianship of a girl when her need for
protection was greatest, as that Winter that followed proved.

I knew nothing of all this then. I only knew my loved one had turned
against me. Of course I knew that Rachel was the cause, but I could not
understand why Marjie would listen to no explanation, why she should
turn completely from me when I had told her everything in the letter I
wrote the night of the party at Anderson's. And now I was many miles
from Springvale, and the very thought of the past was like a
knife-thrust. All my future now looked to the Westward. I longed for
action, for the opportunity to do something, and they came swiftly, the
opportunity and the action.

CHAPTER XVI

BEGINNING AGAIN

It matters not what fruit the hand may gather,
If God approves, and says, "This is the best."
It matters not how far the feet may wander,
If He says, "Go, and leave to Me the rest."

--ALBERT MACY.

I stood in the August twilight by the railway station in the little
frontier town of Salina, where the Union Pacific train had abandoned me
to my fate. Turning toward the unmapped, limitless Northwest, I suddenly
realized that I was at the edge of the earth now. Behind me were
civilization and safety. Beyond me was only a waste of gray nothingness.
Yet this was the world I had come hither to conquer. Here were the
spaces wherein I should find peace. I set my face with grim
determination to work now, out of the thing before me, a purpose that
controlled me.

Morton's claim was a far day's journey up the Saline Valley. It would be
nearly a week before I could find a man to drive me thither; so I
secured careful directions, and the next morning I left the town on foot
and alone. I did not mind the labor of it. I was as vigorous as a young
giant, fear of personal peril I had never known, and the love of
adventure was singing its siren's song to me. I was clad in the strong,
coarse garments, suited to the Plains. I was armed with two heavy
revolvers and a small pistol. Hidden inside of my belt as a last
defence was the short, sharp knife bearing Jean Le Claire's name in
script lettering.

I shall never forget the moment when a low bluff beyond a bend in the
Saline River shut off the distant town from my view and I stood utterly
alone in a wide, silent world, left just as God had made it. Humility
and uplift mingle in the soul in such a time and place. One question ran
back and forth across my