They were standing on the porch steps now, and the white moonbeams glorified Jerry's beauty, for the young ranchman, as she looked up at him with a smile on her lips and eyes full of light, a sudden decision giving new character to her countenance. The suddenness of it, that was her mother's child. The purpose, that was the reflection of Jim Swaim's mind. "I'm on the other side of my Rubicon. I'm going to teach mathematics in the New Eden high-school. Will you help me to keep across the river? There's an inspiration for me in the things that you can do?" "You! Teach mathematics! They always have a man to teach that!" Joe exclaimed, wondering behind his words if he only dreamed that she had asked him to help to keep her across her Rubicon, or if she had really said such a beautiful thing to him, Joe Thomson, sand-fighter and general loser, who wouldn't be downed. "Oh, I don't wonder you are surprised! I always jump quickly when I do move. You think I couldn't teach A, B, C, the known quantities, let alone x, y, z, the unknown quantities, don't you?" Jerry said, gaily. "When I went to school I was a flunker in languages and sciences. I was weak in boarding-school embroidery, too, because I never cared for those things, nor was I ever made to study anything unless I chose to do it. But I was sure in trigonometry and calculus, which I might have dodged and didn't. I reveled in them. My mother was scandalized, and Gene Wellington, an artist, who, by the way, has just given up his career for a good bank clerkship in Philadelphia, a sort of cousin of mine, was positively shocked. It seemed so unrefined and strong-minded. But my father said I was just his own flesh and blood in that line. Yes, I'll teach school. Mr. Ponk is going to offer me the position, and it's a whole lot better than the poor-house, or madness, or the East, maybe," she added, softly, with a luminous glow in her beautiful eyes. The old Sage Brush world seemed to slip out from under Joe Thomson's feet just then. "Is your friend related to John Wellington, who once lived in Philadelphia?" he asked, after a pause, his mind far away from his query. "Why, he's John Wellington's son! John Wellington was a sort of partner of my father's once," Jerry said. Even in the soft light Joe saw the pink flush deepen on the girl's cheek. "Good night." She offered him her hand. "I hope I may see you often. Oh, I hate that blowout, and you ought to hate me on account of it." "It is a brainless, hateful thing," Joe Thomson declared, as he took her proffered hand. "All my streams seem to be Rubicons, even to the crooked old Sage Brush. I can't be an inspiration to anybody. It is you who can give me courage. If you can teach mathematics in New Eden, _I believe I can kill that blowout_." The strength of a new-born purpose was in the man's voice. "Oh, no, you can't, for it's mostly on my land yet!" Jerry replied.