Show the d good 0 A gift by ALICE ROUNDY 0 by Ilo Clure service Sor vicc bi MORRIS onniS young wellborn ahern well bred prettily blond and extremely eitT emely conventional sit sat on a tuft of buffalo gross grass gazing over the broad montana plains sho she was awaiting the coming of eric willoughby a young ranchman of english descent who was the only man in the world who dared to shorten her distinguished nettle name to nora lie he had requested her to await him here in the shade of a windmill wind mill not far from the ranch house from his manner she believed that he was going to ask her to marry him this she knew to be impossible because she was the only and adored child of wealthy parents who believed that no man was quite goof good enough for her presently she beheld him approaching at a g gallop on his superb horse the pick of the range reaching her side he threw himself olt off the horse leaving him to graze and seated himself on the ground near her without preliminaries as if he were continuing a line of thought he said marriage seems seeing to me the grave of freedom so la Is everything in life if one allows it to be replied autonom Aut onoe dogmatically mati cally we are chained to ourselves 1 I have been interested in you ever since your uncle johnnie first told me about you and said that he was wag going east to rescue you autonom gazed at him in am amazement aze lie ile said that you were like a lizard waiting to cast its skin eyes shut the whole of you encased in the lead dead cuticle of your parents prejudices and fears and culture and unless you could be ba freed aou would have no life of 0 your own A thoroughly western point of view murmured autonom Aut onoe haughtily since you came be continued relentlessly lent lessly 1 I have seen that he was dead right at the smack of his words his in manner an of uttering them autonom felt the lizard skin crack from top to botto bottom M 1 I cannot understand she remarked plaintively why a man when he proposes should make himself so disagreeable 1 I am not proposing to you asserted eric sharply certainly you are and the answer Is very no ne he smiled acridly at lease you are alive he said and I 1 sometimes have doubted that I 1 do not wish to hurt your vanity but my thoughts at present are occupied by 9 a very different type of woman A MeX mexican leRn a dancer in a cafe superbly dark I 1 prefer brunettes since he loathed poetry autonom begin began to quote from a poem as greek as her name eric as if stung unendurably sprang to his feet and began to tighten poll minos cinch eric yanked up his horses head and threw himself into the saddle surprised roi reared to his full height an appalling wall of flesh erie eric sat like a rock tearless fearless in perfect control with a catch of her breath autonom thought him like baldur the beautiful the horses feet once more on earth eric said fiercely with a swift glance at Auto noes useless little I 1 hands ands A ranc ranch limans mans wife must be ba up at dawn and put in a fourteen hour day she must scrub cook launder her mans clothes mend them teed feed the dogs and serve every stranger that hallos the house then with a lift of the rein and a touch of the spur he be sent roll mino forward in a swift gallop turning her back upon him returned to the house to find her uncle johnnie Johnn le A middle aged prosperous ran ranchman climan with peculiarly steady eyes he vies v as resting from labor on the wide piazza in a comfortable chair and watching a distant scene one of his men in a flivver rounding up straying cattle and another flying overhead in a small airplane surveying fences ills his mexican wife not older than he be but deplorably wrinkled was waiting on him slavishly sinking into a chair beside him autonom said soberly uncle johnnie Johnn le I 1 want anity aunty pepita to teach me to cook and scrub and feed the dogs and and her uncle looked at her with perfect understanding you mind anything that eric says at present ho he said soothingly lie Is awfully stirred up by the ideals which you represent because they are like those which he be himself had when he first came out here but he seems to have lost them in this rough life and he has bean in danger of marrying at a low level with a flitting glance at his own wife rut but it if he be has begun to quarrel with you he Is saved and you must remember that this Is the west where 1 I know interrupted autonom Aut Aur onoe impatiently but I 1 prefer gentlemen bland and courteous like my father and I 1 am going straight back east where they grow her uncle with a kindly smile left the decision with her and presently she was smiling at hev her contradictory self for in her ber heart of hearts she knew that sooner or later when he had ion nn the fight over himself eric would come boino back to her bearing the good gift meanwhile she must make herself worthy of it and prepare for the time when she should be not autonom but nora |