The Claim Jumpers

ing out her skirts before sitting

nnington, for the first time

oposition to make. You and I are going

ope

he mean by that? thought Bennington), "will be asking all about my

sur

man. Now I'll tell you this: that I am

-Mr. La

e air, of course-you could see the roof of the house. Now, after we know each other be

agreed th

you m

xpressed his

t important event of the year. Well, until that time I am going to try an experiment. I am going to see if-well, I'll tell you; I am going to try an ex

ennington assure

ean what I say. If you want to see me again, you must do as

h made this girl so certain he would care to see her again. Then, with

," he asse

hief. "Behold me! Old Bill Lawton's gal

ll, and no sun fairy," smiled

replied quietly, pointing

sibility, and then melting away again; just rising in the modulations of her voice to a murmur that the ear thought to seize as a definite chord, and then dying into a hundred other cadences. He tried to catch it in her eyes, where so much else was to be seen. Sometimes he perceived its influence, but never itself. It passed as a shadow in the low

ked him his first n

our's too, Miss Law

me Miss Lawton," she cri

you don't want me to, bu

orrid. I've often wished I were a heroine in a book, and then I could have a name I really liked. Now here's a

-" objected the still

any wits at all?" she cried with im

ike that on the spur of the moment, Sun Fairy. A

peated in a s

ame of the curly-haired young man who had

ve I like that," h

think about it,

he said after some little time. "It is sugge

me to be demure and quiet and thoughtful and sweet-voiced and fond of dim forests, while I am a f

ay, but there is something in you like the Phoebe bird just the same. It is like those cloud shadows." He pointed out over the mountains. Overhead a number of summer clouds were winging their way from the west, casting on the earth those huge irregula

r boy," she continued, looking at him for some moments with reflective

" he confessed with

d to be called," said she, "ever sinc

tonished. "Why, it i

irl who was named Mary, and who didn't like it. When she came to our school she changed it, but she didn't dare to break it to the family all at once. The first letter home s

away to school?" a

e replied

e. He did not boast openly, but he introduced extraneous details important in themselves. He mentioned knowing Pennington the painter, and Brookes the writer, merely in a casual fashion, but with just the faintest flourish. It somehow became known that his family had a crest, that his

nt now and then to assist the stream of his talk. At last, when he fe

" she said quietly. "But

he fronds twilight had fallen. The vast green surface of the hills was streaked here

shadows that had, during the latter part of the afte

e was quenched in the Cheyenne; the white gleam of the Bad Lands became a dull gray, scarce distinguishable from the gray of the twilight. Though a single mysterious cleft a long yellow bar pointed down across the plains, paused at the horizon, and slowly lifted into the air. The mountain shadow followed it steadily up into the sky, growing and growing against the dull

s. At its dissolution she seized

ed. "I have never seen it befo

t him with s

u," she

? I don't u

seem to hear

it?" he a

d of herself somewhat. "That is, it is just an old legend

tell me th

We must go now, for i

. The poor little chipmunk lay stiffening in the cleft of the rock, forgotten. The next morning a prying jay discovered him and carried him away. He was only a little chipmunk after all-a very little chipmunk-and no

f the gulch

here," she said, "a

I take y

r your p

very

ver asked any man before," she said slowly-"to meet me. I want you to co

ed delightedly. "I feel as if

n the hillside, and then, with a sudden impulsive movement,

ou have kind eyes," and was gone dow

ard the ridge, but apparently could not see him, though he waved his hand. The next instant Jim Fay strolled into the "park" from the direction of Lawton's cab

as he hurried home. And in remote burial grounds the ancient d