"Desperately," York returned. "But seriously, Laura, she is 'most too big a responsibility to joke about. There are a lot of things tied up for her in this coming West. I have to go to the upper Sage Brush this morning to be gone for a couple of days. I wish she would come here and stay with you, so that she might be with the best woman in the world." York beamed affectionately upon the sweet-faced woman opposite him. "I wish I didn't have to leave this morning, but I'll be back by to-morrow night or early Wednesday morning. It is going to be our job to map out her immediate future. After that, things will take their course without us, and New Eden, I imagine, will have to get along without her. When I get back I'll take her down to see her claim. Ponk is the only man besides myself who knows where it is, and I've fixed him. He can't run a hotel and garage and play escort all at once. I want to prepare her in a way, anyhow, for she won't find exactly what she is expecting--another 'Eden' six times enlarged. Meantime turn her gently, if you can, toward our woolly Western life. I won't say lead. Geraldine Swaim, late of Philadelphia, will never be led." "York she's a lamb. Look at her big, pleading eyes," his sister insisted. "Laura, she's a rock. Look at her square chin. I'm going now, and I will and bequeath her to your care. Good-by." As he left the house his sister heard him whistling the air to the old song, "I'll paddle my own canoe." Evidently the fair Philadelphian was still on his mind. "I wish," he said to himself, as he cleared the north limits of the New Eden settlement and struck out toward the upper Sage Brush country--"I wish to goodness I had pressed Laura to tell me more about what that infernal Big Dipper said to her Saturday. I'll get that creature yet. I believe she knows that as well as I do. I wish, too, I was sure things would just stay put until I get back." Half an hour after York had left town Jerry Swaim, dressed for a drive, appeared at the door of Ponk's garage. "Have you a good little runabout that I could hire this morning? I want to go out into the country," she said to the proprietor. "Why, yes, Miss Swaim, but I 'ain't got no shofer this morning. York Macpherson, he took my last man and soared up the country, and they won't be back for a couple of days. I'm sorry, but could you wait till, say, about a-Thursday, or mebby a-Friday?" Ponk's cheerful grin always threatened to eclipse his eyes, but this morning there was something anxious back of his cheerfulness. Nature had made him in a joking mood, round eyed, round headed, round bodied, talkative, and pompous in an inverse ratio to his size. But there was something always good and reliable about Ponk, and with all his superficiality, too, there was a real depth to the man, and a keener insight than anybody in New Eden, except York Macpherson, ever gave him credit for having.