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 humor in her soul; but the reflection on her aunt's bitter humiliation and misery checked the outburst.

"Yes, it's off for good this time," she said. "Aunt Lila won't send the sheriff after him any more. Poor old soul! she deserves it, but I'm sorry for her, just the same."

"How long's he been gone?" Tippie inquired.

"I don't know just when he left—he was around here this morning," Rawlins prevaricated, determined that Edith never should know of her aunt's greedy plotting to oust him from his homestead if it depended on him to tell.

"I think I'd better go over there and keep my eye on your sheep a while then, Edith," Tippie proposed. "I'm afraid the old lady might experience a change of heart and drive 'em out of here."

Tippie took the saddled horse hitched at the tail of the wagon and rode off, Edith and Rawlins watching him go, the silence of embarrassment between them. Edith was the first to recover, as the woman always is.

"She had her nerve to think I'd marry Elmer," she said.

"Didn't she?" He thought it far better to say nothing of Mrs. Peck's first positive assertion that she had run away to meet a mail-order man.

"She knew all the time I was going to Jasper to file on a homestead in here—I told her I was going to, I asked her to tell you."

"File on a homestead! Edith! You don't tell me? Why, she never"

"I've got the papers, I can prove it," Edith laughed. "That's mine, joining you on the east."