"Do you feel like doing something for me?" she asked, her hand in his, as she made ready to go. "Something? Everything." "Then wait just as long as you can, will you?" "Yes, I will, gladly, since you ask it, just as long as I can." Steering's voice sang as he answered. She would not let him accompany her on her homeward journey, but went on down the river road alone, and Steering returned to the shack, and carefully measured the amount left in his meal sack, and carefully counted the money in his wallet. There was just about enough in the sack to last ten days, flanked by the potatoes and the bacon, and there was so little in the wallet that any kind of emotion about it seemed a waste. Still, he did not appear to appreciate the extremity of the situation as yet. His face was all lit up and the sound of his own voice pleased him. "I will wait, just as long as I can," he repeated at the end of his calculations, "and I can till the meal gives out." _Chapter Fourteen_ WHEN THE MEAL GAVE OUT Steering sat on his bunk in his shack with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes upon an empty bag that hung from the bough of a weeping-willow tree. He had just written Carington to explain that it could not be said that he had conquered Missouri, and that he was leaving next day for Colorado to try his luck at gold on the Cripple Creek circuit. He had not explained to Carington that he would walk the greater part of the way. By some strange perversity of pride a man never does explain a thing of that kind to anybody, least of all to Carington, best friend and close sympathiser.