When Nevada had last been there it was possible to find a few honest men and women, but the percentage in the three hundred population was small.

Nevada halted before a gray cabin set well back in a large plot of ground just inside the limits of the town. The place had not changed. A brown sway-back horse, with the wind ruffling his deep fuzzy coat, huddled in the lee of an old squat barn. Nevada knew the horse. Corrals and sheds stood farther back at the foot of the rocky slope. Briers and brush surrounded a garden where some late greens showed bright against the red dug-up soil. Nevada remembered the rudely painted sign that had been nailed slantwise on the gate-post Lodgings.

Dismounting, Nevada left his horses and entered, to go round to the back of the cabin. A wide low porch had been stacked to the roof with cut stove wood, handy to the door. Nevada hesitated a moment, then knocked. He heard a bustling inside, brisk footsteps, after which the door was opened by a buxom matron, with ruddy face, big frank eyes, and hair beginning to turn gray.

“Howdy, Mrs. Wood!” he greeted her.

The woman stared, then burst out: “Well, for goodness’ sake, if it ain’t Jim Lacy!”

“I reckon. Are you goin’ to ask me in? I’m aboot froze.”

“Jim, you know you never had to ask to come in my house,” she replied, and drew him into a cozy little kitchen where a hot stove and the pleasant odor of baking bread appealed powerfully to Nevada.

“Thanks. I’m glad to hear that. Shore seems like home to me. I’ve been layin’ out in the cold an’ starvin’ for a long time.”

“Son, you look it,” she returned, nodding her head disapprovingly at him. “Never saw you like this. Jim, you used to be a handsome lad. How lanky you are! An’ you’re as bushy-haired as a miner… . What’ve you been up to?”

“Wal, Mrs. Wood,” he drawled, coolly, “shore you’ve heard aboot me lately?” And his gaze studied her face. Much might depend upon her reply, but she gave no sign.

“Nary a word, Jim. Not lately or ever since you left.”

“No? Wal, I am surprised, an’ glad, too,” replied Nevada, smiling his relief. “Reckon you couldn’t give me a job? Helpin’ around, like I used to, for my board.”

“Jim, I jest could, an’ I will,” she declared. “You won’t have to sleep in the barn, either.”

“Now, I’m doggone lucky, Mrs. Wood,” replied Nevada, gratefully.

“Humph! I don’t know about that, Jim. Comin’ back to Lineville can’t be lucky… . Ah, boy, I’d hoped if you was alive you’d turned over a new leaf.”

“It was good of you to think of me kind like that,” he said, moving away from the warm stove. “I’ll go out an’ look after my pack an’ horses.”

“Fetch your pack right in. An’ I’ll not forget you’re starved.”

Nevada went out thoughtfully, and slowly led his horses out to the barn. There, while he unpacked, his mind dwelt on the singular effect that Mrs.