mind?"

"You know I thought once"--Clyde hesitated--"you see you were such
great friends----"

"You thought I might be fond of him? Why, so I am. Not in that way,
though. I might have been if he had tried to make love to me, but he
never did. You see, Miss Burnaby----"

"I wish you'd call me Clyde."

"If you'll call me Sheila. You see, Clyde, Casey and I are too much two
of a kind. We'd never get on. You'll idealize him; I'd call him down.
He'll talk out of his heart to you; he'd talk irrigation, and crops,
and horses to me. You'll accept his judgment in most things as final;
I'd want him to take my opinion instead of his own. Oh, we'd make an
awful mess of it! And so, my dear, don't you think that I'd want his
love, even if I could get it. But at that he's the whitest man I know,
and the best friend I ever had. You're lucky. I don't wonder that he
fell in love with you, either. I wish to goodness _I_ were as pretty."

"I'm glad," said Clyde, "that you haven't said anything about money.
Thank you."

"It's not because I didn't think of it," Sheila admitted frankly. "But
I know it makes no difference to Casey. Fact is, I wonder, knowing him
as I do, that he hadn't some absurd scruples on that point."

"He had. He says we can't be married if he loses this ranch and the
other lands."

"Nonsense," said Sheila practically. "He won't stay with that if you
coax him; he couldn't."

Clyde laughed happily. "That's the nicest compliment I ever had. You're
absolutely the first person I've told."

"Well, I'm much flattered," said Sheila. "When did it happen?"

"Last night."

"Everything happened last night. Was he--er--convincing in the part?"

But Clyde, laughing and blushing, refused details. Sheila wished to go
home at once, but Clyde prevailed on her to wait for Casey. It was his
wish.

"And that settles it from your point of view, of course," said Sheila.
"Well, I'll wait."

Casey returned at noon. Clyde met him halfway between the stable and
the house, bareheaded, the fresh wind fluttering her skirts and
spinning little tendrils of coppery gold across her forehead. He would
have taken both her hands, but she put them behind her, laughing.

"Not here, sir!"

"It's my ranch and my girl."

"In order of merit?"

"My girl and my ranch, then. But tell me: How is Sheila?"

"Quite well, except for her bruises. What a plucky girl she is, Casey!"

"I should say she is," he agreed heartily. "You must be friends