ickly, at the prairie. A broad green plain, parted by the road
squarely in the centre, smiled at her in the sunlight. That was all.
She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hand. Not a wagon nor
a human being was in sight.

Again the weakness and the blackness came stealing over her; she sank
down on the doorstep.

"O God, what have I done!" she wailed.

The hens returned to their search for bugs; but the big collie stayed
by her side, whimpering and fondling her hand.

CHAPTER V--THE DOMINANCE OF THE EVOLVED

The keen joy of life was warmly flooding Ichabod Maurice this
spring day. Not life for the sake of an ambition or a duty, but
delight in the mere animal pleasure of existence. He had risen
early, and, a neighbor with him, they had driven forth: stars all
about, perpendicular, horizontal, save in the reddening east, upon
their long day's drive to the sawmill. The two teams plodded along
steadily, their footfall muffled in the soft prairie loam; the
earth elsewhere soundless, with a silence which even yet was a
marvel to the city man.

The majesty of it held him silent until day dawned, and with the
coming of the sun there woke in unison the chorus of joyous animal
life. Then Ichabod, his long legs dangling over the dashboard, lifted
up a voice untrained as the note of a loon, and sang lustily, until
his companion on the wagon ahead,--boy-faced, man-bodied,--grinned
perilously.

The long-visaged man was near happiness that morning,--unbelievably
near. By nature unsocial, by habit, city inbred, artificially
taciturn, there came with the primitive happiness of the moment
the concomitant primitive desire for companionship. He smiled
self-tolerantly when, obeying an instinct, he wound the lines around
the seat, and went ahead to the man, who grinned companionably as
he made room beside him.

"God's country, this." Ichabod's hand made an all-including gesture,
as he seated himself comfortably, his hat low over his eyes.

"Yes, sir," and the grin was repeated.

The tall man reflected. Sunburned, roughly dressed, unshaven as he,
Maurice, was, this boy-man never failed the word of respect. Ichabod
examined him curiously out of his shaded lids. Big brown hands; body
strong as a bull; powerful shoulders; neck turned like a model; a soft
chin under a soft, light beard; gentle blue eyes--all in all, a face
so open that its very legibility seemed a mark. It reddened now,
under the scrutiny.

"Pardon,"