the heart of every normal human being there's an instinctive,
intimate, personal feeling for one's own flesh and blood that is like
nothing else. Their successes and their failures touch us closer, for
the pride of race is in us all.

"There's none who realize more strongly the limitations of strangers'
friendships than those, who, like you and I, have been dependent upon
them as a substitute for the affection of our own. But there, that's
done with, loneliness is behind us, for we have each other now; and,
bottled up within me, I've the longings of twenty years to spoil and
pamper somebody. When I was the marrying age I was off in the hills;
since then I've been too busy and too critical. So you see, Esther
Kincaid Tisdale, you are filling a long-felt want."

He kissed her with a smack and she hugged his arm in ecstasy.

"I'm going to try and make up for what we both have lost. No harm can
come to you so long as I have a dollar and the brains to make more."

"It's like stories I've dreamed!" she breathed happily.

"But tell me,"--some thought made him hold her at arms' length to read
her face--"has there been no one, no one at all who has figured in these
dreams of yours in a different way from which I do?"

He watched with something like consternation the tell-tale color rise in
her face and her eyes drop from his own.

"There was--one," she faltered, "but he--I--misunderstood--I was vain
enough to think he cared for me. It was a mistake--a stupid mistake of
mine--he just liked me--he was lonely--I suppose--that's all." She
swallowed hard to down the rising lump in her throat.

"Who was he?"

"I don't know exactly who he was; he just came here; rode in on
horseback--for his health, he said. They used to say he was a hold-up
getting the lay of the town to make a raid, or a gambler, but he wasn't,
he _wasn't_ anything like that. _You'd_ have liked him, Uncle Dick, I
know you would have liked him!" Her eyes were sparkling now. "He talked
like you, and when he was interested enough to exert himself he had the
same sure way of doing things. But he went away about three weeks ago
and did not even say good-by."

"What's his name?"

She answered with an effort--

"Ogden Van Lennop."

"Van Lennop?" Kincaid's voice was sharp with astonishment. "Why, girl,
he's here. He just got in and he's raising Cain in Crowheart! I meant to
tell you, but this shopping business quite drove it from my head. The
news has only co