"I run in to see Thelmy Ekblad. She 'ain't gone home, is she? Got her shopping all done a'ready? Some girls can buy their weddin' finery quicker 'n scat. Did she say who was to make that new white dress she was buyin' yesterday at the Palace Emporium?" This straight at Jerry, who was resting lazily in the porch swing after an unusually annoying day. "Not to me," Jerry replied, sliding another pillow behind her shoulders and leaning back comfortably. "Well, well! I s'posed girls always told them things to each other. 'Specially if they slep' together. She's gettin' a mighty fine man, though--Thelmy is--at least, folks says she's gettin' him. He's there a lot, 'specially 'long this spring. His farm's right near her and Paul's. And she's one prince of a girl. Don't you say so, Miss Swaim?" Jerry smiled in spite of herself, saying: "Yes, she's a prince of a girl. I like her." And then, because she was tired that night, both of Stellar and her topic, and the whole Sage Brush Valley, she turned away that neither Laura nor Stellar might see how much she wanted to cry. But turning was futile. Mrs. Bahrr's eyes went right through the girl and she knew her shaft had hit home. Joe had not been to town for weeks. It didn't matter to Jerry. Yet the next day after Stellar's call lacked something--and the next and the next. Not a definite lack, for Jerry's future was settled forever. Down on the Sage Brush ranches Joe Thomson was trying to believe that things wouldn't matter, too, if they failed to go his way. These were lonely days for the young ranchman, who saw little of Jerry Swaim because every possible minute of his time was given to wrestling with the blowout. There were many more lonely days, also, for Jerry, who now began to miss Joe more than she thought it could be possible to miss anybody except Gene Wellington, idealized into a sad and beautiful memory that kept alive an unconscious hope. And, with all her energy and her determination, many things combined to make her school-room duty a hard task to one whose training had been so unfitting for serious labor. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc came temptingly to her memory, and there were weary hours when the struggle to be sure and satisfied was greater than her friends could have dreamed. The third winter of her stay had seen an unusual snowfall for the Sage Brush, and this spring following was an unusually rainy one. Everywhere rank vegetation flourished, prairies reveled in luxurious growths, and cultivated fields were burdened with the promise of record-breaking harvests. York Macpherson's business had begun to call him to the East for prolonged trips, and he had less knowledge than formerly of the details of the affairs of New Eden and its community. One day not long after Thelma's shopping trip Joe Thomson dropped into the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. "How's the blowout?" This had become York's customary greeting.