“You know, Will,” she brought up the subject in the spring, a little shyly, half hesitatingly, “I wish we could have a home of our own. Your folks . . .” She dropped her eyes that Will might not see the telltale evasion in them,—“are good to me, but I’d so like my own little house. It needn’t be half as big . . . or nice . . .”

To Abbie’s surprise Will turned on her in a sort of suppressed fury. “I don’t like it either, you needn’t think. I’m thinking every day what to do. What am I here? A hired man for Father. I’ll never get anywhere. And now we’ve got the baby . . . I’m glad you’ve been the one to bring it up. It decides me. We’re going out to Nebraska to start for ourselves.”

“Nebraska?” It had the sound of South Africa.

“Yes, . . . there are too many settlers here. And as long as I’m anywhere around here I’d always have to work for Father. It ain’t right, I tell you. And another thing, Abbie, our boy sha’n’t be tied down. He can do what he wants. And we’re going to Nebraska,—you and I and little Mack.”

“Oh, no, Will, not out there. Anywhere around here, but not to that far-off place. Why, Will, . . . my mother . . . my brothers and sisters . . . your folks . . . they’re all around here . . .”

“You can come back to visit them, I promise you that, Abbie, whenever you want to. It’s a wonderful opportunity. It’s the poor man’s country. We can get railroad land dirt cheap . . . or lease school lands near the river or even push on farther west and homestead.”

“It’s dangerous, Will. There are Indians.”

“Well, so are there Indians here. A whole camp of ’em over by Fisher’s Lake.”

“But they’re peaceable, . . . and those out there . . . Oh, Will . . .”

“It’s been fourteen years since the government made the treaty with the Indians out there . . . fourteen years ago, they gave up their title to all that land out there bordering on the Missouri. I guess when it’s been that long settling, we’ll find it in pretty good shape. . . .” Will was talking definitely, stubbornly, as though the question were settled. Abbie was so frightened at the turn the argument was taking that she studiously kept her voice calm.

“The baby, Will, . . . we have to think of him. There won’t be good schools . . . or doctors . . .”

“It is of him I’m thinking . . . the big future for him out in the newer country. He’ll be a farmer. All the Deals have always been for the land. . . .”

Fathers have always thought it,—that their sons belong only to them. Small wonder that Will Deal made the mistake of forgetting something, forgetting that the baby was also a Mackenzie, that his mother held her head as Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie had held hers in the wide gold frame,—that her hair had the gold-brown tints of the lovely lady,—that her long slender fingers tapered at the ends.