David shook his head forlornly. His spirit of adventure was smothered. "We'll talk about it again, David," he said, as he went in to consult M'ri. "Don't you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with me? I am going to buy the ranch on which I've been foreman, and I'll try to do for David all that should have been done for me when I, at his age, felt homeless and alone. He's the kind that takes things hard and quiet; life in the open will pull him up." "No, Joe," replied M'ri resolutely. "He's not ready for that kind of life yet. He needs to be with women and children a while longer. Barnabas and I are going to take him. Barnabas suggested it, and I told Mrs. Dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we would do so if anything like this should happen." Joe looked at her with revering eyes. "Miss M'ri, you are so good to other people's children, what would you be to your own!" The passing of M'ri's youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. She was of the kind that old age would never wither. In the deep blue eyes was a patient, reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. She turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his speech had evoked. After he had gone, she sought David. "I am going to stay here with you, David, for two or three days. Then Barnabas and I want you to come to live with us. I had a long talk with your mother one day, and I told her if anything happened to her you should be our boy. That made her less anxious about the future, David. Will you come?" The boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things. "I'd like it, but would--Jud?" "I am afraid Jud doesn't like anything, David," she replied with a sigh. "That's one reason I want you--to be a big brother to Janey, for I think that is what she needs, and what Jud can never be." The boy remembered what his mother had counseled. "I'll always take care of Janey," he earnestly assured her. "I know you will, David." Two dreary days passed in the way that such days do pass, and then David rode to his new home with Barnabas and M'ri. Jud Brumble, a refractory, ungovernable lad of fifteen, didn't look altogether unfavorably upon the addition to the household, knowing that his amount of work would thereby be lessened, and that he would have a new victim for his persecutions and tyrannies. Janey, a little rosebud of a girl with dimples and flaxen curls, hung back shyly and looked at David with awed eyes. She had been frightened by what she had heard about his mother, and in a vague, disconnected way she associated him with Death. M'ri went to the child's bedside that night and explained the situation. "Poor Davey is all alone, now, and very unhappy, so we must be kind to him. I told him you were to be his little sister."