"Major!" said Mrs. Buford reprovingly from the head of the table, where she sat in state, "I do not like to hear you speak in that way. We are in the hands of the Lord." "Quite right," said Buford, "and I beg pardon. But, really, this country does bring some changes, and we ourselves surely change with it. No one seems to think of the past out here." "Don' you b'lieve I don' never think o' the past!" broke in a deep and uninvited voice, much to Mrs. Buford's disquietude. "This yer sho'hly is a lan' o' Sodom an' Tomorrow. Dey ain't a sengle fiahplace in the hull country roun' yer. When I sells mer lan' fer a hundred dollahs, fust thing I'm a-goin' do is to build me a fiahplace an' git me er nice big settle to putt in front o' hit, so'st I kin set mer bread to raise befo' the fiah, like all bread orter be sot. How kin a pusson cook out yet--not to say, _cook_?" "That will do, Lucy," said Mrs. Buford. "We are demoralized," said Mary Ellen hopelessly, "and I resent it. I resent your knowing us or knowing anything about our lives. If you had never heard anything at all about us it mightn't have been so bad. We came out here to get away from every one." Franklin bit his lip. "Mary Ellen, my child!" cried Mrs. Buford. "That's hardly fair," said Franklin. "We are all beginners in this land." Yet there was an awkward break in the conversation. "Providence guides all our ways," said Mrs. Buford, somewhat irrelevantly, and with her customary sigh. "Amen!" cried a hearty voice from the kitchen. "'Scuse meh!" "You will oblige me, captain," said Buford as they finally rose from the table, "if you will be so good as to drive Miss Beauchamp over to the claim shanty after a while. I'll just ride along over on horseback. I don't like to put a guest to work, but really I need a little help about that roof. It has fallen in at one corner, and I presume it ought to be repaired, for the sake of Miss Beauchamp's conscience when she goes to the Land Office to prove up." Franklin assented to this proposition with such eagerness that he blushed as he saw how evident had been his pleasure at this opportunity for a moment's speech alone with the girl who sat so near but yet so unapproachable. "I'll be delighted," said he. Mary Ellen said nothing. The pink spot in her cheek was plainly deeper. It did not lessen as she stood watching the struggle the two men had in again hitching to the buggy the wild black horse. Seizing the tug with one hand and the singletree with the other, Franklin fairly swept the obdurate beast off its balance as he forced it to its place at the pole. His strength was apparent. "Are you afraid to ride behind that horse?" asked he.