Mary was dressed as neatly as Joan always dressed for her work with the sheep. And she wore a little black crucifix about her neck on another ribbon which she had no need to conceal. When she touched it she smiled and smiled, and not for the comfort of the little cross, Mackenzie understood, but in tenderness for what lay beneath it, and for the shepherd lad who gave it. There was a beauty in it for him that made the glad day brighter. This fresh, sprightly generation would redeem the sheeplands, and change the business of growing sheep, he said. The isolation would go out of that life; running sheep would be more like a business than a penance spent in heartache and loneliness. The world could not come there, of course. It had no business there; it should not come. But they would go to it, those young hearts, behold its wonders, read its weaknesses, and return. And there would be no more straining of the heart in lonesomeness such as Joan had borne, and no more discontent to be away. "I hoped you'd marry Joan," said Mary, with a sympathetic little sigh. "I don't like Earl Reid." "Mary?" said Mackenzie. Mary looked up inquiringly. "Can you keep a secret for me, Mary?" "Try me, John." "I _am_ going to marry Joan." "Oh, you've got it all settled? Did Joan wear your ring when she went home?" "No, she didn't wear my ring, Mary, but she would have worn it if I'd seen her before she was sent away." "I thought you were at the bottom of it, John," the wise Mary said. "You know, dad's taken her sheep away from her, and she had a half-interest in at least a thousand head." "I didn't know that, but it will not make any difference to Joan and me. But why hasn't she been over to see me, Mary?" "Oh, dad's sore at her because she put her foot down flat when she heard it was fixed for her to marry Earl. She told dad to take his sheep and go to the devil--she was going to go away and work somewhere else. He made her go home and stay there like a rabbit in a box--wouldn't let her have a horse." "Of course; I might have known it. I wonder if she knows I'm up?" "She knows, all right. Charley slips word to her." "Charley's a good fellow, and so are you," Mackenzie said, giving Mary his hand. "You'll get her, and it's all right," Mary declared, in great confidence. "It'll take more than bread and water to tame Joan." "Is that all they're giving her?" "That's dad's idea of punishment--he's put most of us on bread and water one time or another. But mother has ideas of her own what a kid ought to have to eat." Mary smiled over the recollection, and Mackenzie joined her. Joan would not grow thin with that mother on the job.