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Rivers said, with an abrupt change in his voice:

“Mrs. Burke is a hummer, isn’t she? How’d his flat-chested nibs manage to secure a ‘queen’ like that? I must get married, Bailey–no use.”

Bailey took his friend’s declaration more lightly than it deserved. He laughed. “Wish you would, Jim, and relieve me of the cookin’.”

Blanche could hardly compose herself to sleep. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she whispered. “It’s all so strange, like being out of the world, someway.”

Burke heard the ducks quacking down in the “Moggason,” and he, too, felt the silence and immensity of the plain outside. It was enormous, incredible in its wildness. “I believe we’re going to like it out here, Blanche,” he said.

Blanche Burke rose to a beautiful and busy day. The breakfast which she cooked in the early dawn was savory, and Rivers, who helped her by bringing water and building the fire, was full of life and humor. He seemed to have no other business than to “wait and tend” on her.

He called her out to see the sunrise. “Isn’t this great!” he called, exultantly. Flights of geese were passing, and the noise of ducks came to them from every direction. He pointed out the distant hills, and called her attention to a solemn row of sand-hill cranes down by the swale, causing her to see the wonder and beauty of this new world.

“You’re going to like it out here,” he said, with conviction. “It is a glorious climate, and you’ll soon have more neighbors than you want.”

After breakfast Bailey and Burke left the “Moggason Ranch”–as Bailey called the store and shanty–to carry the lumber and furniture belonging to Burke on to his claim, two or three miles away. Rivers remained to work in the store, and to meet some other land-seekers, and Mrs. Burke agreed to stay and get dinner for them all.

During this long forenoon, Rivers exerted himself to prevent her from being lonely. He was busy about the store, but he found time to keep her fire going and to bring water and to tell her of his bachelor life with Bailey. She had never had anything like this swift and smiling service, and she felt very grateful to him. He encouraged her to make some pies and to prepare a “thumping dinner.” “It will seem like being married again,” he said, with a chuckle.

Burke and Bailey returned at noon to dinner.

“Mrs. Burke, you can sleep in your own ranch to-night,” announced Bailey.

“I guess it will be a ranch.”

“It’ll be new, anyhow,” her husband said, with a timid smile.

After dinner she straightened things up a little, and as she got into the wagon she said: “Well, there, Mr. Rivers. You’ll have to take care o’ things now.”

Rivers leered comically, sighed, and looked at his partner. “Bailey, I didn’t know what we needed before; I know now. We need a woman.”

Bailey smiled. “Go get one. Don’t ask a clumsy old farmer like me to provide a cook.”

“I’ll get married to-morrow,” said Rivers, with a droll inflection. They all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. “Well, good-bye, boys; see you later.”

After leaving the ranch they struck out over the prairie where no wagon-wheel but theirs had ever passed. Here were the buffalo trails, deep-worn ruts all running from northwest to southeast. Here lay the white bones of elk in shining crates, ghastly on the fire-blackened sod. Beside the shallow pools, buffalo horns, in testimony of the tragic past, lay scattered thickly. Everywhere could be seen the signs of the swarming herds of bison which once swept to and fro from north to south over the plain, all so silent and empty now.

A few antelope scurried away out of the path, and a wolf sitting on a height gravely watched the teams as if marvelling at their coming. The wind swept out of the west clear and cold. The sky held no shred of cloud. The air was like some all-powerful intoxicant, and when Bailey pointed out a row of little stakes and said, “There’s the railroad,” their imagination supplied the trains, the wheat, the houses, the towns which were to come.