h, quit your arguin'," commanded the mother. "We got enough to do to
move nearer that water tonight, without wastin' time talkin'. Supper's
ready."

Martin and Nellie sat down beside the red-and-white-checkered cloth
spread on the ground, and Wade, after passing the still fretting baby to
his wife, took his place with them.

"Seems like he gets thinner every day," he commented, anxiously.

With a swift gesture of fierce tenderness, Mrs. Wade gathered little
Benny to her. "Oh, God!" she gasped. "I know I'm goin' to lose him. That
cow's milk don't set right on his stomach."

"It won't set any better after old Brindle fills up on this dust,"
observed Martin, belligerency in his brassy voice.

"That'll do," came sharply from his father. "I don't think this is
paradise no more'n you do, but we wouldn't be the first who've come with
nothing but a team and made a living. You mark what I tell you, Martin,
land ain't always goin' to be had so cheap and I won't be living this
time another year. Before I die, I'm goin' to see your mother and you
children settled. Some day, when you've got a fine farm here, you'll see
the sense of what I'm doin' now and thank me for it."

The boy's cold, blue eyes became the color of ice, as he retorted: "If I
ever make a farm out o' this dust, I'll sure 'ave earned it."

"I guess your mother'll be doin' her share of that, all right. And don't
you forget it."

As he intoned in even accents, Wade's eyes, so deep in their somber
sockets, dwelt with a strange, wistful compassion on his faded wife.
The rays of the setting sun brought out the drabness of her. Already,
at thirty-five, grey streaked the scanty, dull hair, wrinkles lined
the worn olive-brown face, and the tendons of the thin neck stood out.
Chaotically, he compared her to the happy young girl--round of cheek and
laughing of eye--he had married back in Ohio, fifteen years before. It
comforted him a little to remember he hadn't done so badly by her until
the war had torn him from his rented farm and she had been forced to do
a man's work in field and barn. Exposure and a lung wound from a rebel
bullet had sent Wade home an invalid, and during the five years which
had followed, he had realized only too well how little help he had been
to her.

It is not likely he would have had the iron persistency of purpose to
drag her through this new stern trial if he had not known that in her
heart, as in his, there gnawed ever an all-devouring