“Good! Well, I rather guess it will taste good! See here, I can't ever thank you for this--for bringing it yourself.” He had few words, but his looks were moderately expressive. Nancy blushed with pleasure. “Well, I had to--when folks are so wrapped up in their business. There, with Susan's compliments! Susan's the heifer you rounded up for me in the ditch. I know she made you a lot of work, tracking holes in your banks you're so fussy about. Do you really think it is a good ditch?” “I am positive it is.” “Then if anything goes wrong down here they will lay the blame on you?” “They are welcome to. That's what I am here for.” Nancy openly acknowledged her approval of a man that stood right up to his work and would take no odds of any one. “The other boys were always complaining and saying it was the ditch. But there, I know it is mean of me to talk about them.” “I guess it won't go any further,” said Travis dryly. “Well, I hope not. They were good boys enough, but pretty trifling watchmen, I shouldn't wonder.” Travis had nothing to say to this, but he made a mental note or two. “When will you give me a chance to return your basket?” “Why, anytime; there's no hurry about the basket. Have you any regular times?” He looked away, dissembling his joy in the question, and answered as if he were making an official report,-- “I leave camp at six, patrol the line to the ferry and back, lay off an hour, and down again at eleven. Back in camp at three, and two hours for dinner. On again at five, and back in camp at nine. I pass this bridge, for instance, at seven and nine of a morning, twelve and two afternoons, and six and eight in the evening.” “Six and eight,” Nancy mused, with a slight increase of color. “Well, I can stop some evening after cow-time, I suppose; but it isn't any matter about the basket.” Six evenings, going and coming, Travis delayed in passing the bridge, on the watch for Nancy; six times he filled the basket with such late field-flowers as he could find, and she never came. On the seventh evening his heart announced her, from as far off as his eyes beheld her. This time she was in white, without her hat, and she wore a blue ribbon in her gold-brown braids,--a blue ribbon in her braids, and a red, red rose in either cheek; and her colors, and the colors of the sky, floated like flowers on the placid water. “Well, where is the basket, then?” she merrily demanded. “I left it behind, for luck.” “For luck? What sort of luck?” “Six times I brought it, and you were never here; so to-night I just kicked it into the tent and came off without it. It seems to have been about the right thing to do.” “What, my basket!” “Your basket. And it was filled with wild flowers, the prettiest I could find. It's your own fault for not coming before.” “I never set any day that I know of. I have been up to town.” Travis was not pleased to hear it.