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“No, no, Brice; it’ll go straight as a rocket. Let me see now. The letter’ll be a week, then ‘lowin’ ’em a week to get started”–

“Loisy won’t be a week startin’, neighbor.”

“Never you mind, man. ‘Lowin’ ’em a week to get off, that’s two weeks; then them emigrant trains is slow, say thirteen days on the road,–that’s about another fortnight,–four weeks; this is the fifth, ain’t it? Twenty-eight and five’s thirty-three; that’ll be the third o’ next month, say. Now mind what I tell you, Brice; don’t look fer ’em a minute before the third,–not a minute.”

“‘Pears like a long spell to wait, neighbor.”

“I know it, man; but it’ll seem a thunderin’ sight longer after you begin to look fer ’em.”

“I reckon you’re right. Say four weeks from to-day, then. Like enough you’ll be goin’ in.”

“Yes, we’ll hitch up and meet ’em at the train,–you and me. The women’ll have things kind o’ snug ag’in’ we git home. Four weeks’ll soon slide along, man.”

Joel went into the house smiling softly.

“I had to be almost savage with the fellow, Barbara. The anxious seat’s no place fer a chap like him; it’d wear him to a toothpick in a week.”

“But she might get here before that, you know, Joel.”

“I’ll fix that with the men at the depot. If she comes sooner we’ll have her out here in a hurry. Wish to goodness she would.”

III.

The Southern winter blossomed royally. Bees held high carnival in the nodding spikes of the white sage, and now and then a breath of perfume from the orange groves in the valley came up to mingle with the wild mountain odors. Brice worked every moment with feverish earnestness, and the pile of gnarled roots on the clearing grew steadily larger. With all her loveliness, Nature failed to woo him. What was the exquisite languor of those days to him but so many hours of patient waiting? The dull eyes saw nothing of the lavish beauty around him then, looking through it all with restless yearning to where an emigrant train, with its dust and dirt and noisome breath, crawled over miles of alkali, or hung from dizzy heights.

“To-morrow’s the third, neighbor. I reckon she’ll be ‘long now d’reckly.”

“That’s a fact; what a rattler time is!” The days had not been long to Joel. “We’ll go in to-morrow, and if they don’t come you can stay and watch the trains awhile. She won’t know you, Brice; you’ve picked up amazingly.”

“I think likely Loisy’ll know me if she comes.”

But she did not come. Joel returned the following night alone, having left Brice at cheap lodgings near the station. Numberless passers-by must have noticed the patient watcher at the incoming trains, the homely pathos of his face deepening day by day, the dull eyes growing a shade duller, and the awkward form a trifle more stooped with each succeeding disappointment. It was two weeks before he reappeared on the mesa, walking wearily like a man under a load.

“I reckon there’s something wrong, ma’am. I come out to see ef yer man ‘ud write me a letter. I hadn’t been long in Plattsville, but I worked a spell fer a man named Yarnell; like enough he’d look it up a little. I ain’t much at writin’, an’ I’d want it all writ out careful like, you know.” The man’s voice had the old, uncomplaining monotony.

Joel wrote the letter at once, making the most minute inquiries regarding Mrs. Brice, and giving every possible direction concerning her residence. Then Brice fell back into the old groove, working feverishly, in spite of Mrs. Brandt’s kindly warnings.

“I can’t stop, ma’am; the settin’ ’round ‘ud kill me.”

The answer came at last, a businesslike epistle, addressed to Joel. Mrs. Brice had left Plattsville about the time designated. Several of her neighbors remembered that a stranger, a well-dressed man, had been at the house for nearly a week before her departure, and the two had gone away together, taking the Western train. The writer regretted his inability to give further information, and closed with kindly inquiries concerning his former employee’s health, and earnest commendation of him to Mr. Brandt.