ast me many a year when I needed it; and, then, George
and I were married at Lumley's...."

Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy, and laid a hand on Cassy's
shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded
no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his
son's wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might,
after all, be avoided.

"Come, and I'll show you your room, Cassy," she said. "It faces south,
and you'll get the sun all day. It's like a sun-parlour. We're going to
have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the
house warm enough for you?"

The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red
hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said in
that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point
and emphasis, "Oh, this house is a'most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!"

Then she moved towards the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her
son's hand in her own.

"You can see the Lumleys' place from your window, Cassy," said Black
Andy grimly. "We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it's ours
now; and Jerry Lumley's stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he's better off
than Abner, or Abner's wife."

Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some
latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and
her face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not
against her.

"I'm glad to be back West," she said. "It meant a lot to me when I was
at Lumley's." She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a
laugh.

"How long have you come to stay here--out West?" asked the old man
furtively.

"Why, there's plenty of time to think of that!" she answered brusquely,
and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her.

In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and
the windows of Lumley's house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays,
glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save
the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills
for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the
vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of
warmth and refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to
rest upon the wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South
over the hills, and th