She stopped, looking at him expectantly. The minister turned away, rubbing his hands up and down his polished crutches. There was a soft, troubled light in his eyes.

"Why, Nancy!"

His companion got up and moved a step backward. Her cheeks flushed a pale, faded red.

"Oh, no," she said, with a quick, impatient movement of her head, "not that, Joseph; that died years ago,--you are the same to me as other men, excepting that you are Marg'et Ann's father. It's for _her_. It's the only way I can live my life over again, by letting her live hers. I don't know that it will be any better; but she will know, she will have a certainty in place of a doubt. I don't know that my life would have been any better; I know yours would not, and anyway it's all over now. I know I can get on with the children, and I don't think people will talk. I hope you're not going to object, Joseph. We've always been very good friends."

He shook his head slowly.

"I don't see how I can, Nancy. It's very good of you. Perhaps," he added, looking at her with a wistful desire for contradiction,--"perhaps I've been a little selfish about Marg'et Ann."

"I don't think you meant to be, Joseph," said the old maid soothingly; "when anybody's so good as Marg'et Ann, she doesn't call for much grace in the people about her. I think it's a duty we owe to other people to have some faults."

Outside the door Marg'et Ann still lingered, with her anxiety about the bread on her lips and the shadow of much serving in her soft eyes. Miss Nancy stopped and drew her favorite into the shelter of her gaunt arms.

"I'm coming over next week to help you get ready for the wedding, Margie," she said, "and I'm going to stay when you're gone and look after things. They don't need me at Samuel's now, and I'll be more comfortable here. I've got enough to pay a little for my board the rest of my life, and I don't mean to work very hard, but I can show Nancy Helen and keep the run of things. There, don't cry. We'll go and look at the sponge now. I guess you'd better ride over to Yankee Neck this afternoon, and tell them you don't want the winter school--There, there!"

At the Foot of the Trail

I

The slope in front of old Mosey's cabin was a ma.s.s of purple lupine.

Behind the house the wild oats were dotted with brodiaea, waving on long, glistening stems. The California lilac was in bloom on the trail, and its clumps of pale blossoms were like breaks in the chaparral, showing the blue sky beyond.

In the corral between the house and the mountain-side stood a dozen or more burros, wearing that air of patient resignation common to very good women and very obstinate beasts. Old Mosey himself was pottering about the corral, feeding his stock. He stooped now and then with the unwillingness of years, and erected himself by slow, rheumatic stages.

The donkeys crowded about the fence as he approached with a forkful of alfalfa hay, and he pushed them about with the flat of the p.r.o.ngs, calling them by queer, inappropriate names.

A young man in blue overalls came around the corner of the house, swinging a newly trimmed manzanita stick.

"h.e.l.lo, Mosey!" he called. "Here I am again, as hungry as a coyote.

What's the lay-out? Cottontail on toast and patty de foy gra.s.s?"

The old man grinned, showing his worn, yellow teeth.

"I'll be there in a minute," he said. "Just set down on the step."

The young fellow came toward the corral.

"I've got a job on the trail," he said. "I'm going down-town for my traps. Who named 'em for you?" he questioned, as the old man swore softly at the Democratic candidate for President.

"Oh, the women, mostly. They take a lot of interest in 'em when they start out; they're afraid I ain't good to them. They don't say so much about it when they get back."

"They're too tired, I suppose."

"Yes, I s'pose so."

"You let out five this morning, didn't you? I met them on my way down.

The girl in bloomers seemed to be scared; she gave a little screech every few minutes. The others didn't appear to mind."

"Oh, she wasn't afraid. Women don't make a noise when they're scared; it's only when they want to scare somebody else."

The young fellow leaned against the fence and laughed, with a final whoop. A gray donkey investigated his hip pocket, and he reached back and prodded the intruder with his stick.

"You seem to be up on the woman question, Mosey. It's queer you ain't married."

The old man was lifting a boulder to hold down a broken bale of hay, and made no reply. His visitor started toward the cabin. The old man adjusted another boulder and trotted after his guest, brushing the hay from his flannel shirt. A column of blue-white smoke arose from the rusty stovepipe in the cabin roof, and the smell of overdone coffee drifted out upon the spiced air.

"I was just about settin' down," said the host, placing another plate and cup and saucer on the blackened redwood table. "I'll fry you some more bacon and eggs."

The visitor watched him as he hurried about with the short, uncertain steps of hospitable old age.

"By gum, Mosey, I'd marry a gra.s.s-widow with a second-hand family before I'd do my own cooking."

The young fellow gave a self-conscious laugh that made the old man glance at him from under his weather-beaten straw hat.

"Your mind seems to run on marryin'," he said; "guess you're hungry. Set up and have some breakfast."

The visitor drew up a wooden chair, and the old man poured two cups of black coffee from the smoke-begrimed coffee-pot and returned it to the stove. Then he took off his hat and seated himself opposite his guest.

The latter stirred three heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar into his cup, muddied the resulting syrup with condensed milk, and drank it with the relish of abnormal health.

"I tell you what, Mosey," he said, reaching for a slice of bacon and dripping the grease across the table, "there ain't any flies on the women when it comes to housekeeping. Now, a woman would turn on the soapsuds and float you clean out of this house; then she'd mop up, and put scalloped noospapers on all the shelves, and little white ap.r.o.ns on the windows, and pillow-shams on your bunk, and she'd work a doily for you to lay your six-shooter on, with 'G.o.d bless our home' in the corner of it; and she'd make you so comfortable you wouldn't know what to do with yourself."

"I'm comfortable enough by myself," said the old man uneasily. "When you work for yourself, you know who's boss."

"Naw, you don't, Mosey, not by a long shot; you don't know whether you're boss or the cookin'. I tried bachin' once"--the speaker made a grimace of reminiscent disgust; "the taste hasn't gone out of my mouth yet. You're a pretty fair cook, Mosey, but you'd ought to see my girl's biscuits; she makes 'em so light she has to put a napkin over 'em to keep 'em from floating around like feathers. Fact!" He reached over and speared a slice of bread with his fork. "If I keep this job on the trail, maybe you'll have a chance to sample them biscuits. I'm goin' to send East for that girl."

"Where you goin' to live?"

"Well, I didn't know but we could rent this ranch and board you, Mosey.

Seems to me you ought to retire. It ain't human to live this way. If you was to die here all by yourself, you'd regret it. Well, I must toddle."

The visitor stood a moment on the step, sweeping the valley with his fresh young glance; then he set his hat on the back of his head and went whistling down the road, waving his stick at old Mosey as he disappeared among the sycamores in the wash. The old man gathered the dishes into a rusty pan, and scalded them with boiling water from the kettle.

"I believe I'll do it," he said, as he fished the hot saucers out by their edges and turned them down on the table; "it can't do no harm to write to her, no way."

II

Mrs. Moxom put on her slat sunbonnet, took a tin pan from the pantry shelf, and hurried across the kitchen toward the door. Her daughter-in-law looked up from the corner where she was kneading bread.

She was a short, plump woman, and all of her convexities seemed emphasized by flour. She put up the back of her hand to adjust a loosened lock of hair, and added another high light to her forehead.

"Where you going, mother?" she called anxiously.

The old woman did not turn her head.