"I don't like being a _silent_ partner," she returned lightly. "I wish I could do my share. I'm even afraid to say I'll pray for your success for, to the present, I've never made a prayer that's been answered. But," and she sobered, "I want to tell you I _do_ believe in you. It's like a fairy tale--too wonderful and good to be true--but I'm going to bank on it and whatever happens now--no matter how disagreeable--I shall be telling myself that it is of no importance for in a few months my hard times will all be done." Bruce took the hand she gave him and looked deep into her eyes. "I'll try--with all my might," he said huskily, and in his heart the simple promise was a vow. He watched her as she ran up the steps and disappeared inside the wide doors of the office building--resenting again the thought that she had "hours"--that she had to work for pay. If all went well--if there were no accidents or miscalculations--he should be able to see her again by--certainly by October. What a long time half a year was when a person came to think of it! What a lot of hours there were in six months! Bruce sighed as he turned away. He looked up to meet the vacant gaze of a nondescript person lounging on the curbing. It was the fourth or fifth time that morning he thought he had seen that same blank face. "Is this town full of twins and triplets in battered derbies?" Bruce asked himself, eying the idler sharply as he passed, "or is that hombre tagging me around?" XVII A PRACTICAL MAN Bruce's thoughts were a jumble of dynamos and motors, direct and alternating currents, volts and amperes, when James J. Jennings' papier-mache suitcase hit him in the shins in the lobby of a hotel which was headquarters for mining men in the somnolent city on the Pacific coast. Jennings promptly dropped the suitcase and thrust out a hand which still had ground into the knuckles oil and smudge acquired while helping put up a power-plant in Alaska. "Where did you come from--what are you doing here?" Bruce had seen him last in Alberta. "Been up in the North Country, but"--James lifted a remarkable upper lip in a shy grin of ecstasy--"I aims to git married and stay in the States." "Shoo--you don't say so!" Bruce exclaimed, properly surprised and congratulatory. "Yep," he beamed, then dropped, as he added mournfully, "So fur I've had awful bad luck with my wives; they allus die or quit me." Bruce ventured the hope that his luck might change with this, his last--and as Jennings explained--fifth venture. "I kinda think it will," the prospective bridegroom declared hopefully. "Bertha looks--er--lasty. But what about you?--I never knew you'd even saw a city." "I'm a sure enough Sourdough," Bruce admitted, "but I did stray out of the timber. Register, and I'll tell you all about it--maybe you can help me."