ecame a byword to virtuous infancy, and as the years went by, and her
wild beauty and her father's wealth grew apace, Deaneville grew less
and less charitable in its judgment of her. Shandon lived in a houseful
of men, her father's adored companion and greatly admired by the rough
cattle men who came yearly to buy his famous stock.

When her father died, a little wave of pity swept over Deaneville, and
more than one kind-hearted woman took the five-mile drive down to the
Bell Ranch ready to console and sympathize. But no one saw her. The
girl, eighteen now, clung more to her solitude than ever, spending
whole days and nights in lonely roaming over the marsh and the low
meadows, like some frantic sick animal.

Only Johnnie Larabee, the warm-hearted little wife of the village hotel
keeper, persevered and was rewarded by Shandon's bitter confidence,
given while they rode up to the ridge to look up some roaming steer,
perhaps, or down by the peach-cutting sheds, while Shandon supervised a
hundred "hands." Shandon laughed now when she recounted the events of
those old unhappy childish days, but Johnnie did not like the laughter.
The girl always asked particularly for Mary Dickey, her admirers, her
clothes, her good times.

"No wonder she acts as if there wasn't anybody else on earth but her!"
would be Shandon's dry comment.

It was Johnnie who "talked straight" to Shandon when big Dan Waters
began to haunt the Bell Ranch, and who was the only witness of their
little wedding, and the only woman to kiss the unbride-like bride.

After that even, Johnnie lost sight of her for the twelve happy months
that Big Dan was spared to her. Little Dan came, welcomed by no more
skillful hands than the gentle big ones of his wondering father and the
practised ones of the old Indian. And Shandon bought hats that were
laughed at by all Deaneville, and was tremulously happy in a clumsy,
unused fashion.

And then came the accident that cost Big Dan his life. It was all a
hideous blur to Shandon--a blur that enclosed the terrible, swift trip
to Sacramento, with the blinking little baby in the hollow of her arm,
and the long wait at the strange hospital. It was young Doctor Lowell,
of Deaneville, who decided that only an operation could save Dan, and
Doctor Lowell who performed it. And it was through him that Shandon
learned, in the chill dawn, that the gallant fight was lost. She did
not speak again, but, moving like a sleepwalker, reached