im. But now, don't try to
talk. He's got what he had coming, and he'll never trouble you again."

"Whose little dog is this?" she asked suddenly, reaching out a hand
which the young Airedale kissed fervently. "If it hadn't been for that
little dog, you'd never have found me, would you? You couldn't have
heard me call. I would not have dared to shoot. Whose little dog?"

"It's yours, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "And I got four hens."

CHAPTER XVII

SAGEBRUSHERS

Nels Jensen reached his home late in the afternoon, his face grave and
his tongue more than usually tight. His wife, Karen, looked at him for
some time before she spoke.

"Find anything, up in?"

He nodded quietly.

"Doctor get to that sick man?"

"He wasn't sick," rejoined Nels. "Tree fell on him."

"What you do with him?"

"Died before we come out. Whole woods was afire up in there."

"I see the smoke a while back," said she unemotionally, nodding and
gazing out of the window toward the distant landscape. "Died, did he?
Did you bring him down?"

"The wind has changed," said Nels sententiously. "Before night, won't
be nothing to bring down. We left him in his tent."

"Who set that fire, Nels?" she demanded of her husband after a time.

"The same people that burned out Sim Gage and Wid Gardner. All of 'em
had cleared out but that one."

"How about that woman, Nels?"

"We brung her down with us. She'd spent the night in the woods alone.
Doctor's got her in bed over at Sim's place now." He turned his heavy
face upon her frowningly, apparently passing upon some question they
earlier had discussed. "I say it's all right, Karen, about her."

"Well, are they going to be married?" she demanded of him. "That's the
question. Because if they ain't----"

"If they are or they ain't," said Nels Jensen, "she's not no common
folks like us."

"A lady--huh!"

"Yes, if I can tell one. Such being so, best thing you can do, Karen,
is to get some eggs together, and like enough a loaf of bread, and go
over there right soon."

"If they wasn't _going_ to be married," began Karen, "people in here
wouldn't let that run along."

"Karen," said her husband succinctly, "sometimes you women folks make
me tired. Go on and get the eggs."

"Oh, all right," said his wife; and already she was reaching for her
sunbonnet. When she and her sturdy spouse had made their way by a
short cut across the fields to Sim Gage's house, Karen Jensen had
melt