best tell me. You see, I don't get enough pressure of thinking to
hatch anything. Maybe between us we can fix your mental eggs right."

Bill's big eyes lit with relief and hope.

"That's bright of you. You surely are the cutest girl ever. You must
have got a heap of brain to spare."

Helen could no longer restrain her laughter.

"It's mostly all--spare. Now, then, tell me all your troubles."

The great creature at her side looked doubtful and puzzled.

"I don't know just where to begin. There's such a heap, and I've
worried thinking about it, till--till----"

Helen sat up and propped her chin in her hands with her elbows on her
knees.

"When you don't know where to begin just start with the first thought
in your head, and--and--ramble."

Bill brightened up.

"Sure that's best?"

"Sure."

The man sighed in relief.

"That's made a heap of difference," he cried. Then he took a
handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his
forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as
though he were defying an enemy. "Will you marry me?" he demanded, and
sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either
hand.

The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her
chair and laughed.

"We--we are talking of troubles," she protested.

Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.

"Troubles? Troubles? Isn't that trouble enough to start with?
It's--it's the root of it all," he declared. "I'm--I'm just crazy
about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police,
and--and the scallywags of the valley, I--I find you mixed up with it
all, and get so tangled up that I don't know where I am, or--or why.
Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for
instance? It's the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you're
pleased--then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts
of fool things that haven't any sense at all. Then you want to make
rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and
laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no
sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You
sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females
aren't women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world's
on a pivot, and that pivot's just yourself, and if you weren't there
there'd be a bust up, and most everything would