"Yes?" A certain exultation was in his voice. "To _me_? All my life
everything's been _no_ to me!"

She laid her hand on his, pity rising in her own heart. "I'll take
care of you," said she.

"I was scared from the first of any woman coming out here," said Sim
Gage truthfully. "But whatever you say goes. But our gettin' married!
When?"

"The sooner the better."

They both nodded assent to this, neither seeing the other, for he dared
not look her way now.

"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers
comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I
ain't been to church--well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer
ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get
any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?"

"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have
said--yes."

"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be
of service to him. "You've never told me."

"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to
think of that? _You_ mustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think
of me a-tall."

"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably
small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He
pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every
fiber of his soul.

"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly.
"It's--usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him.
It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing.

"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just
the same. You see, this ain't a usual case."

"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go
out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I
wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can,
won't you?"

She was talking to the empty room, weeping to an empty world.

CHAPTER XX

MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.--AND SIM GAGE

Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of an
hour or two in the open air.

"I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once more
had cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to the
dam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won't
you? Say I can't nowa