ing on to the L. D., although the banker knew it could not be for long. And Tom's face was the strongest argument of all.
"Well, maybe you're right, Tom," he said heavily. "You'll get a change, and—maybe later on"
"It's not a change I'm after. I've got the interest to pay on those notes, and this way I can earn it."
In the end it was so arranged. The remaining stock was to be sold, the ranch put on the market. Tulloss, worried at Tom's face, asked him to lunch with him at the Prairie Rose, but Tom refused.
"I'm not good company for man or beast these days," he said, and went out of the office as uncompromisingly as he had come in.
He went back, sold the stock, even straightened the ranch house. And on his last night there he lighted a lamp and began to pack, with a face set with misery, the small and unimportant things that Kay had left; her mending basket, her bits of clothing, even the little face pillow she had been so fond of.
"It's a pillow for a baby!"
"Well, maybe some day"
God!
On the mantel still sat the remnant of that Christmas candle he had put in the window. "Maybe somebody outside and want to come in." But there had been nobody outside to come in, and now there never would be anybody.
He stood looking at it. Then, curiously enough, he took it down and put it into the box. She would wonder about that. It would puzzle her. She would wrinkle up her forehead, the way she used to, and hold it up and look at it. But she would never know.
After he had finished he nailed the lid on the box and carried it out to the rickety car. It was a small box to carry what it held: all a man's hopes, in this life or the life to come. He put it into the car gently, like some poor dead thing.
He started early the next day, but early as it was the cattle were already on the road. Once more shipping time
