d
thought, but the simple word "yours"--

"If only she were," thought Grant, and felt the color creeping to his
face at the thought. It was the first time he had dared that much.
He had not bothered to wonder much where or how this affair must end.
Through all the years that had passed since that night when she had
fallen asleep on his shoulder, and he had watched the ribbons of fire
rising and falling in the valley, and the smell of grass-smoke had been
strong in his nostrils, through all those years Zen had been to him a
sweet, evasive memory to be dreamed over and idealized, a wild, daring,
irresponsible incarnation of the spirit of the hills. Even in these last
few days he had followed the path simply because it lay before him. He
had not sought her out in all that great West; he had been content with
his dream of the Zen of years gone by; if Fate had brought him once
more within the orbit of his star surely Fate had a purpose in all its
doings. One who has learned to believe that no bullet will find him
unless "his name and number are on it" has little difficulty in excusing
his own indiscretions by fatalistic reasoning.

He wrote on the back of the note, "Look for me at eight," and then,
observing that the boy had not brought teddy along, he inquired
solicitously for the health of the little pet.

"He's all right, but mother wouldn't let me bring him. Said I might
lose him." The tone in which the last words were spoken implied just how
impossible such a thing was. Lose teddy! No one but a mother could think
such an absurdity.

"But I got a knife!" Wilson exclaimed, his mind darting to a happier
subject. "Daddy gave it to me. Will you sharpen it? It is as dull as a
pig."

Grant was to learn during the day that all the boy's figures of speech
were now hung on the family pig. The knife was as dull as a pig; the
plow was as rough as a pig; the horses, when they capered at a corner,
were as wild as a pig; even Grant himself, while he held the little chap
firmly on his knee, received the doubtful compliment of being as strong
as a pig. He went through the form of sharpening the knife on the
leather lines of the harness, and was pleased to discover that Wilson,
with childish dexterity of imagination, now pronounced it as sharp as a
pig.

The boy did not return to the field in the afternoon, and Grant
spent the time in a strange admixture of happiness over the pleasant
companionship he had found in this little son