ow-being. She hurried to the kitchen, while the men of the party
filed down the stairs and out into the yard. John Harris was the last
to leave the house, and he walked slowly, with bare, bowed head, into
the group who were excitedly discussing the amazing turn events had
taken. He took no part in their conversation, but stood a little
apart, plunged deep in his own inward struggle.

At last he turned and called his wife in the kitchen door. "Bring
Beulah," he said.

The two women joined him. At first Harris stood with face averted,
but in a moment he spoke in a clear, quiet voice.

"I haven't played the game fair with you two," he said, "and I want
to say so now. Perhaps it would be truer to say that I played the
wrong game. Twenty-five years have proved it was the wrong game. Now,
without a penny, I can start just where I started twenty-five years
ago. The only difference is that I am an old man instead of a young
one. I'm going to take another homestead and start again, at the
right game, if Mary will start with me."

She put her hand in his, and her eyes were bright again with the fire
of youth. "You know there is only one answer, John," she whispered.

Harris called Travers over from the group of men.

"There's one thing more," he continued. "When I started I had only a
wife to keep, and I don't intend to take any bigger responsibility
now. Allan will be having a homestead of his own. Jim Travers, I am
speaking to you! I owe you an apology for some things and an
explanation for some things, but I'm going to square the debt with
the only gift I have left."

The light breeze tossed the hair of Beulah's uncovered head, and the
light of love and health glowed in her face and thrilled through the
fine symmetry of her figure.

"Take her, Jim," he said.

"She is a godly gift," said the young man reverently.

"You think so now," said her father. "You know nothing about it. In
twenty-five years you will know just how great a gift she is--or she
will not be worthy of her mother."

Harris and his wife were gazing with unseeing eyes into the mountains
when Arthurs handed them a letter. "It came in the mail which the
boys brought out this morning," he said, "and I forgot all about it
until this minute."

It was from Bradshaw. Harris opened it indifferently, but the first
few lines aroused his interest, and he read it eagerly to the end.

"My dear Harris," it ran, "on receipt of your telegram I immediately
ope