nie arrived escorting Betty Jornsen;
pretty, buxom and beaming, and as full of confidence as Smiler was of
Chinese noodles.

Smiler could not understand then what the ceremony was all about, nor
did he seem to gain any further enlightenment on the matter at any
later date.

It was all over within two hours of Betty's arrival in Vernock.

Sol was for sending Betty to her new home till supper time, intending
himself to go back to the smithy with Phil and get down to the heavy
work that lay there awaiting completion. But Phil and Jim would have
none of it. And when Betty and Mrs. Clunie backed them up, there was
nothing left for Sol to do but to obey; so, with three or four
hand-bags--half of them borrowed--they were bundled into the Kelowna
stage, and nothing more was heard of them for two weeks.

Smiler attended to his own needs as he had had to do often before, and
he was back in the basement of the Chinese restaurant in Wynd Alley,
finishing his dinner sampling,--with his new rig-out rolled up in a
bundle under his arm and garbed in his much beloved rags and tatters.

That was the first of a dozen occasions upon which Smiler was dressed
up by various well-meaning members of the community and it was the
first of twelve occasions that Smiler resented the interference and
went back, at the earliest opportunity, to his old, familiar and
well-ventilated draperies.

The next fourteen days were desperate ones for Phil. From the moment
he got back to the smithy, repair work piled in on him. Reapers and
binders gave way in various parts and had to be put to rights at once,
for it was nearing the end of the harvest season and the cold weather
was already creeping along. Every horse in the Valley seemed suddenly
to require reshoeing; wagon springs broke; buggy tires came off or
wore out as they had never done before; morning, noon and night Phil
slaved trying to cope with the emergency. There was no help that he
could call in, and he would not for worlds have sent word to Sol to
end his holiday a moment sooner that might be.

He snatched his meals when and where he could, while everyone
clamoured for the immediate execution of his requirements. Finally
Phil got up so early and he worked so late, that he made his bed for
the time being on a bundle of straw covered with sacking, in a corner
beside the forge.

He was young and strong, and he knew his work. He loved the rush of it
and he gloried in the doing of things that