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CHAPTER XXVII

GRAY DECEMBER

HESTER and Julia Forest arrived for a visit

two days before Christmas. While Julia en

tered energetically with Nan upon the task of preparing for the Thunder Creek school celebration, Susan Dines gave her brother an account of what had been going on.

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"Nancy an' Harve's quarreled," she said; "an' Harve went off to Kansas to his brother's about ten days ago. Seems he didn't leave no word when he was comin' back-not even with Vergil. . There's been some talk of him gettin' mixed up with that Engel gal, though I don't think there's any cause for worry on that score. Still, Nancy says she's never goin' to make it up with Harve. It ain't just a case of sweethearts quarrelin'; she tells me she's goin' on teachin' school an' forget him."

Impulsive as always, Forest went straight to Nan, a glitter of protest in his small blue eyes.

"What about you an' Harvey bustin' up?" he demanded.

"Listen, Dad," she replied quietly, putting her hand on his arm. "I'm miserably unhappy over it, but I

can't marry Harvey; he's so-so unjust, so jealous and angry, and-"

"Jealous!" Forest cried. "Good gracious, ain't that natural? Don't it show he loves you? Nancy, what's wrong?"

"It's so hard to make you see, Dad, and❞—she watched with a mounting flood of tenderness the distress in her father's face and swiftly put her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek against his—“I'm not sure, sometimes, sometimes I think I'm wrong, but I just couldn't be happy with him."

"I see," he muttered, catching in his loving sympathy for her a glimpse of the truth that Nan had not acknowledged, "it's because you don't love him?”

"Partly, Dad," she whispered. "Just don't talk about him any more, will you?"

"Of course not, Nancy, but-well, you've got me for awhile, anyway, me an' Julia," and Nan played the dear old game of easing her father's distress and gaining consolation for herself by making him feel that he was her haven of refuge.

Gaining strength, Tom Winger joined Bill Ridge at W-R ranch headquarters. He did not know whether the rumor he had heard of Nan's refusing to see Harvey was true or not, and he waited, with what patience he could, a sign from her, some definite assurance that she was free. His creed was simple: "If a fellow makes a play for a girl an' loses out, he forgets her, he sure don't try to bust up her engage

ment to the other man!" So he kept away, avoiding any chance of meeting Nan, though his hunger for her warm quick smile, the clasp of her fingers, the sight of her forward-thrusting, graceful, lithe and erect body, the deliciously curving cheeks and throat, the sunset hair, the joyous light of her eyes, grew stronger. Nothing could blot out the memory of her few given kisses, the quivering of her arms around his neck, the shy confession of her love during their own brief betrothal.

Nan, too, was waiting-and hoping-for a sign from Tom.

Meanwhile, at his brother's farm in Kansas, Harvey was striving desperately to map a future that would satisfy his confused desires. As he thought and planned, he fell more deeply into a tangle of resentments and longings.

If he believed that he could forget Nan by driving a hundred miles and undertaking to establish himself anew in the community where he had spent his boyhood, he was doomed to disappointment. Frankly puzzled by Harvey's manner and annoyed by his morose silence, George Stokes drove him to Estonia on a Saturday to meet the neighbors and find out what farms were for sale. On that little town's patched plank sidewalks, bordering a main street of half frozen black mud, George's friends formed in small groups; they shook hands with Harvey limply, pretending to remember him; they shifted restlessly on cold feet,

coughed, spat effusively and noisily; they elaborated tepid jokes, cursed the railroads and the Democratic administration at Washington; and bragged of their run-down farms. Estonia was no longer the fascinating town of Harvey's remembered boyhood. It seemed a dull, cheerless place. He hated it, and was quickly convinced that not in Kansas would he find the solution of his troubles. He laughed bitterly as he thought of what would happen should he send for Ruby Engel and ask her to settle down here with him on one of the tired, weed-infested farms that were for sale.

"She'd fly the coop in six months!"

As the days passed, and he went per functorily to look at one after another overvalued place, he grew certain that if he meant to put Nan out of his life and thoughts, forget Thunder Creek and marry Ruby, he must get clear away from family and friends. His mind turned to a sentence in Ruby's letter referring to her vague plan to join Kate Hayes in Denver, and he wrote to her:

"Looks like they ain't nothin up here for me. Its a wore out country. I wisht you was allreddy at

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Denver an could tell me about how things is out there. Maybe Ill trail on out there before long."

That bit from Harvey's letter cheered Ruby. It would simplify her problem if she could "hit Denver

with Harve," if he could be persuaded to sell out his interests in the long grass country and take her to that alluring metropolis. With the idea of furthering this plan, she lied outrageously in her answer:

"Harve, I guess you wouldnt make no mistake to figure on Denver an the sooner the better. You sure wouldnt want to hang around here to watch whats goin on between Nan an Tom Winger. . . . You know I aint suspicious an wouldnt say a word agin anybody's reputation, but-Nan's teachin now at the new schoolhouse an if you knowed how often that Nigger horse of Toms an Chiquita stands hitched together at the schoolhouse after all the scholars is gone, sometimes till after dark-well, Harve I dont need to rite no more along that line!"

As he read Ruby's insinuations, his first reaction was anger.

"She's lyin', Nan wouldn't do that!" Then came the after-effect of those ugly words upon his morbid mind. The letter seemed to come alive in his inner vest pocket and burn through his shirt; its evil implications seemed to penetrate his very skin and light a dull, hurting fire deep inside him; and out of the dank smolder of misery and despairing, jealous anger an acrid fog arose to cloud his eyes. . . . He found that he must move slowly, watch his tongue to pre

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