A strange lightening came to Constance Ellsworth's heart. The droop at the corners of her mouth faded away. She slid down off the blanket roll and edged along across the ground until she sat at his side. She reached out her hand for the skillet.

"That spider isn't clean in the least," said she.

"Oh, well," apologized Tom Osby, leaning back against the wagon wheel and beginning to fill a pipe. "I suppose there might be just a leetle sand left in it, but that don't hurt. Do you want a dish towel? Here's one that I've used for two years, freightin' from Vegas to Heart's Desire.

Me and it's old friends."

"Let your dishes dry in the sun if you can't do better than that,"

reproved Constance. "Ah, you men!"

"You're right hard to get along with, ma'am. Us gettin' you two breakfasts, too!"

They looked into each other's faces and Constance laughed. "The air is delightful--isn't it a beautiful world?" she exclaimed joyously.

"It sh.o.r.e is, ma'am," rejoined Tom Osby, "if you think so. It's all in the way you look at things."

"I came out here for my health, you know," said she, carefully explanatory.

"Yes, I know. You ain't any healthier than a three-year-old deer on good pasture. Ma'am, I'm sorry for you, but I wouldn't really have picked you out for a lunger. You know, I don't believe Dan Andersen's health is very good, either. He's needin' a little Sky Top air, too,"

She froze at this. "I don't care to intrude into Mr. Andersen's affairs," she replied, "nor to have him intrude into my own."

"Who done the intrudin'?" asked Tom Osby, calmly. "Here's me and him have flew down here as a bird to our mountings. We was wantin' to hear about a 'face that was the fairest.' We was a-settin' here, calm and peaceful, eating _frijoles_, who intruded? Was it us? Or, what made us intrude?" He looked at her keenly, his eyes narrowed in the sunlight.

Constance abandoned the skillet and returned to the blanket roll.

"Now," went on Tom Osby, "things happens fast out here. If I come and set in your parlor in New York, it takes me eight years to learn the name of your pet dog. Lady comes out and sets in my parlor for eight minutes, and I ain't such a fool but what I can learn a heap of things in that time. That don't mean necessary that I'm goin' to tell any _other_ fellow what I may think. It _does_ mean that I'm goin' to see fair play."

The girl could make no protest at this enigmatic speech, and the even voice went on.

"How I know things is easy," he continued. "If you think he"--once more nodding his head toward the group beyond--"come down here to hear a op'ry singer sing, I want to tell you he didn't. That was me. He come to give me fair play in regards to a 'face that was the fairest.' I'm here to see that he gets fair play in them same circ.u.mstances--"

"I just came down with my father," Constance interrupted hotly, suddenly thrown upon the defensive, she knew not why. "He's been ill a great deal. I've been alarmed about him. I _always_ go with him."

"Of course. I noticed that. Your dad's goin' to run the railroad into Heart's Desire, and we'll all live happy ever after. You come along just to see that your dad didn't get sun stroke, or Saint Vitus dance, or cerebrus meningittus, or something else. I understood all that perfectly, ma'am. And I understand too, perfectly, ma'am," he continued, tapping his pipe on a wagon wheel, "that back yonder in the States, somewhere, Dan Anderson knowed a 'face that was the fairest'; I reckon he allowed it was 'the fairest that e'er the sun shone on.' Now, I'm old and ugly, and I don't even know whether I'm a widower any or not; so I know, ma'am, you won't take no offence if I tell you it's a straight case of reasonin'; for _yore_ own face, ma'am,--and I ain't sayin' this with any sort of disrespect to any of my wives,--is about the fairest that Dan Anderson ever did or could see--or me either. I don't reckon, ma'am, that he's lookin' for one that's any fairer."

Constance Ellsworth turned squarely and gazed hard into the eyes of the man before her. She drew a breath in sharply between her lips, but it was a sigh of content. She felt herself safe in this man's hands. Again she broke into laughter and flung herself upon the convenient frying-pan, which she proceeded to scrub with sudden vigor. Tom Osby's eyes twinkled.

"Whenever you think that skillet's clean enough, us two will set up and cook ourselves some breakfast right comfterble. As for them fellers over there, they don't deserve none."

So presently they two did cook and eat yet again. A strange sense of peace and content came to Constance, albeit mingled with remorse. She had suspected Dan Anderson of worshipping at the shrine of an operatic star, whereas he had made the long journey from Heart's Desire to see herself! She knew it now.

"I'm goin' to take you up to the hotel, ma'am," said Tom Osby, after Constance had finished her third breakfast, "and then, after that, I'm goin' to take Dan Anderson back home to Heart's Desire. We'll see you up there after a while.

"One thing I want to tell you, ma'am, is this. We've got along without a railroad, all right, and we ain't tearin' our clothes to have one now.

If that railroad does get into our town, it's more'n half likely that it'll be because the boys has took a notion to you. I never did see you before this mornin'; but the folks has told me about you--Curly's wife, you know, and the rest. We'd like to have you live there, if only we thought the town was good enough for you. It's been mostly for men, so far."

CHAPTER XIV

THE GROUND FLOOR AT HEART'S DESIRE

_Proposing Certain Wonders of Modern Progress, as wrought by Eastern Capital and Able Corporation Counsel_

Tom Osby and Constance walked up the trail toward the hotel, and Dan Anderson from a distance saw them pa.s.s. He watched the gray gown move through sun and shadow, until it was lost beyond the thickening boles of mountain pines. She turned once and looked back, but he dared not appropriate the glance to himself, although it seemed to him that he must rise and follow, that he must call out to her. She had been there, close to him. He had felt the very warmth of her hand near to his own. There flamed up in his soul the fierce male jealousy. He turned to this newcomer, this man of the States, successful, strong, fortunate. In his soul was ready the ancient challenge.

But--the earth being as it is to-day, a compromise, and love being dependent upon property, and chast.i.ty upon chattels, and the stars of the Universe upon farthing dips--though aching to rise and follow the gray gown, to s.n.a.t.c.h its wearer afar and away into a sweet wild forest all their own, Dan Anderson must sit silent, and plan material ways to bring the gray gown back again to his eyes according to the mandates of our society. Because the gray gown was made in the States, he must forget the lesson of Curly and the Littlest Girl. Because the wearer of the gown lived in the States, he must pull down in ruins the temple of Heart's Desire. Such is the sweet logic of these days of modern progress, that independence, friendship, faith, all must yield if need be; even though, and after all, man but demands that himself and the woman whom he has sought out from all the world may one day be savage and sweet, ancient and primitive, even as have been all others who have loved indeed, in city or in forest, from the beginning of the world.

"As Mr. Ellsworth has told me," went on Porter Barkley, "you are an able man, Mr. Anderson,--far too able to be buried down here in a mountain mining town."

"Thank you," said Dan Anderson, sweetly; "that's very nice of you."

"Now, I don't know what induced you to hide yourself out here--" went on Barkley, affably.

"No," replied Dan Anderson, "you don't. As for myself personally, it's no one's d.a.m.ned business. I may say in a general way, however, that the prevailing high prices of sealskins and breakfast food in the Eastern States have had a great deal to do with our Western civilization. The edge of the West is mostly inhabited by fools and philosophers, all mostly broke."

"I think I follow you," a.s.sented Barkley; "but I'd rather cla.s.sify you as a philosopher."

"Perhaps. At least I am not fool enough to talk about my own affairs.

You say you are here to talk business. It is your belief that I understand some of the chemical const.i.tuents of the population of Heart's Desire. Now, in what way can we be useful to each other?"

Ellsworth broke in, "It's as Barkley says; I've been watching you, Mr.

Anderson, and I've had an interest in you for quite a while."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, I have. I want to see you win out. Now, if you won't go to the mountain, the mountain will have to come to you. If you won't go back and live in the States, we will have to bring the States to you; and they'll follow mighty quick when the railroad comes, as you know very well."

"My friend Tom Osby used those very words this morning, when he heard the whistle of your esteemed railroad train."

"Precisely," Ellsworth went on. "We'll give you a town to live in.

We'll give you professional work to do."

"So you'll build me a town, in order to get me work? That's very nice of you, indeed."

"Now, there you go with your infernal priggishness," protested Ellsworth, testily. "Have we asked you to do anything but straight business?"

"Exactly," said Barkley.

They were playing now with Dan Anderson's heartstrings, but his face did not show it. They were putting him in the balance against Heart's Desire, but his speech offered no evidence of it. They were making Constance Ellsworth the price of Heart's Desire, but Dan Anderson did not divulge it, as he sat and looked at them.

"Gentlemen," said he, at length, "I am a lawyer, the best one in Heart's Desire. The law here is complex in practice. The t.i.tles are very much involved. Between Chitty on Pleading and the land grants of the Spanish crown, the law may be a very slow and deliberate matter in this country. Now, I understand the practice. I speak the language--I don't need an interpreter--so that I am probably as good as any lawyer you can secure at this time. In straight matters of business I am open for employment."

"Now you are beginning to talk," said Barkley. "And just to get right _down_ to business, and show you we're not all talk, I want to give you a little retainer fee. I'm sorry it isn't larger, but it'll grow, I hope." He drew a goodly wallet from his breast pocket, and counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, which he threw down carelessly on the pine needles in front of Dan Anderson. "Is that satisfactory?" he asked.

"Yes," said the latter; but he did not take up the money.