dow between them, feeling that he owed Reid a
great debt indeed. More than that, he liked the kid, for there seemed
to be a streak of good in him that all his ugly moods could not cover.
But he went his way over the hills toward Dad's camp, the thought
persisting in him that he would, indeed, be thirty minutes nearer
Joan. And it was a thought that made his heart jump and a gladness
burn in his eyes, and his feet move onward with a swift eagerness.

But only as a teacher with a lively interest in his pupil, he said;
only that, and nothing more. On a hilltop a little way beyond his camp
he stopped suddenly, his breath held to listen. Over the calm,
far-carrying silence of the early night there came the sound of a
woman singing, and this was the manner of her song:

_Na-a-fer a-lo-o-one, na-a-fer a-lone.
He promise na-fer to leafe me,
Na-fer to leafe me a-lone!_

CHAPTER XV

ONLY ONE JACOB

Joan came riding over the next morning from Reid's camp, not having
heard of Mackenzie's shift to oblige Dad Frazer. She was bareheaded,
the sun in her warm hair, hat hanging on her saddle-horn.

"Dad might have come by and told me," she said, flinging to the ground
as lightly as a swallow. "It would have saved us half an hour."

"We'll have to work harder to make it up," Mackenzie told her,
thinking how much more a woman she was growing every day.

Joan was distrait again that day, her eyes fixed often in dreamy
speculation as her teacher explained something that she found hard,
against her wonted aptness, to understand. When the rather disjointed
lesson came to an end Joan sighed, strapping her books in a way that
seemed to tell that she was weary of them.

"Do you still think you'll stick to the sheep business, John?" she
asked, not lifting her eyes to his face, all out of her frank and
earnest way of questioning.

"I'm only on probation, you know, Joan; something might happen between
now and this time next year to change things all around. There's a
chance, anyhow, that I may not make good."

"No, nothing will ever happen to change it," said Joan, shaking her
head sadly. "Nothing that ought to happen ever happens here. I don't
know whether I can stand it to carry out my contract with dad or not.
Three years between me and what I'm longing for!"

"It's not very long when one's young, Joan. Well, I don't know of any
short cuts to either fame or fortune, or I'd hav