The various and sundry hatchets which had been brandished in the mental atmosphere between the natural guardians of those two heroes, Irving Bruce and Robert Nixon, were all decently buried by the time the Yellowstone party were about to be reunited at Fairport.

Mrs. Bruce had quite the glow of a hostess as she placed flowers in the rooms of the expected ones; and Mrs. Nixon had invited the Bruce household, of which her son was to continue to be one, to dine with them at the inn on the evening of their arrival.

They had a cosy corner of the dining-room to themselves when the time came.

Helen Maynard looked charming in an evening gown of pale pink chiffon. The quiet little chrysalis familiar to their Yellowstone stage had yielded up a butterfly upon which Mrs. Nixon looked with pride as the work of her hands, noting with satisfaction the admiring curiosity in the eyes of the three men.

Even Helen’s demureness was not proof against the radiance of her content to-night as they took their places at the table. She was seated between the two young men, whose coats of tan provoked much comment from the newcomers.

When they had taken their places, Robert looked about with his usual cheerfulness.

“All present or accounted for but Hebe,” he declared. “It seems as if she ought to materialize and bring us our soup.”

Irving gazed at him. “You saw nothing unfitting, then, in that office for her?”

The speaker’s manner was always quiet, but his boon companion recognized the tone.

“Brute of my heart!” ejaculated the latter, “‘I would not live alway,’ but a little longer, please! You’ll pardon the natural yearnings of an affectionate nature. I can’t help missing lovely Hebe.”

“There is a more familiar face than Miss Vincent’s that we are missing,” said Helen. She turned to Mrs. Bruce. “How is Clever Betsy?”

“Very well indeed, thank you,” returned that lady. “She is evidently more than grateful to be on her native heath again. I think I never knew Betsy in such good spirits as she has shown the past week.”

“I noticed it in Boston,” said Helen. “When she came to see us she seemed so happy. She said the best part of any trip, no matter how delightful, was getting home again.”

While Helen Maynard spoke, she had a habit of turning at short intervals to Mr. Derwent as if to include him in all she said; and such was his ability to understand her, that his eyes sent her an acknowledgment even when there was no occasion for him to speak.

This time, however, he did answer.

“I don’t wonder at Betsy. I like the looks of this place very much myself.”

“And the taste of it,” added Robert, eating his soup with a seaman’s appetite. “This is very good, for a hotel. For myself, I live in a private family, and I pity you all. Mrs. Bruce has a cook with whom I’m liable to elope.”

“I’ll show her off to you some day soon,” said Mrs. Bruce graciously.

Betsy Foster was meanwhile enjoying the unwonted sole possession of the cottage. While she straightened the chaos in the young men’s rooms, a smile was on her lips, and a light of excitement burned in her eyes.

When all was neat within doors and she had eaten her simple supper, she went out on the veranda, and seating herself in the best rocker, rocked, and hummed one of Robert’s most abandoned two-steps.

While she was thus enjoying the dolce far niente of her unobserved evening, a light rain began to fall.

“I don’t know as I’m sorry if it does rain,” she murmured. “It’ll keep ’em in the house, and I want ’em all to be there. I’m sure it’ll please Mr. Derwent.”

While she thus reflected, a square-shouldered, sturdy, masculine figure entered the gate and came up the garden-path.

Betsy showed no surprise at his appearance. The pleasant light continued in her eyes as she arose.

“How do you do, Hiram?” she said, as he came up the steps. “Take the big chair.”

“Well!”

The sea-blue gaze scrutinized her as the guest’s hard hand held hers until she jerked it away with decision.

“Take the big chair,” she repeated.

“Ye’d rather give me that than your hand, eh?” returned Hiram, and he seated himself on the edge of the flexible wicker.

“Sit back, and take comfort,” said Betsy, returning to her rocker.

Captain Salter obeyed, moving cautiously.

“Well, travelin’ does improve folks, they say. I can see you’re improved, Betsy.”

“You thought there was need of it, did you?”

“Well, I should think so! I knew the minute I got your note this afternoon that you was beginnin’ to get more reasonable. To have you do somethin’ real decent like askin’ a feller to come and see you, showed that you was broadenin’ out, Betsy, broadenin’ out. Folks all gone to the inn to dinner, eh?”

“Yes. I thought it would be a good chance for me to hear some o’ the town gossip.”

“’Tis. Real good. It’s all over Fairport that you and me’s goin’ to be married this fall.” Betsy stopped rocking. “The name o’ the boat kind o’ started it up—”

“You might have known it would, Hiram Salter!” said Betsy accusingly.

“O’ course I did. What d’ye s’pose I named her for?”

“’Twas a mean trick, Hiram!”

Captain Salter changed the blade of grass he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “Why, certainly,” he responded. “Ye didn’t s’pose I wouldn’t descend to mean tricks, did ye? We heard even when we was goin’ to school that all’s fair in love and war.”

She looked at him for a moment with a baffled gaze, then she spoke.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said defiantly. “Everybody that knows me knows I ain’t ever goin’ to marry anybody. I wouldn’t anyway now—after you namin’ the boat. Do you s’pose I’d marry a man that shows right out plain that he’s a tyrant?”

Captain Salter emitted a low rumbling laugh, and sat quiet in his all-embracing chair.

“Tell me what’s doin’ in town,” asked Betsy in a different tone. “How’s Mrs. Pogram gettin’ along without Rosalie?”

“Oh, she’s havin’ a fierce time. She no sooner gets settled with somebody to help her, than Loomis upsets everything with some of his fool doin’s.”

“I’m goin’ to surprise you,” said Betsy, slowly, “more’n you ever was surprised in your life, Hiram.”

“How so? Goin’ to marry me this evenin’?”

“I found Rosalie Vincent out in Yellowstone Park.”

“Pshaw! Ye don’t say so! By the way, Betsy, I was glad o’ those sightly pictures you sent me. Course I s’pose they’re all lies—just advertisin’—”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Betsy eagerly. “You never saw anything so beautiful. I—”

“Yes,” interrupted Hiram, “I’ve got ’em pinned up on the wall, and, come October, you’ll tell me all about it evenin’s. I cal’late what with Europe and all the globe-trottin’ you’ve done lately, I’m goin’ to have a wife that’ll beat that She-Herod-Sady that told the Arabian Nights, all holler; and what’s more, you won’t ever be afraid ye’ll get yer head cut off; so ye’ll be ahead of her, every way.”

“Hiram,” said Betsy severely, “what do you think o’ my findin’ Rosalie ’way out there?”

“I think ’twas part of her good luck.”

“What good luck has the child ever had?”

“That, and all that come of it.”

Betsy stared, a little disappointed at her admirer’s foreknowledge.

“Has Mr. Irving told you—” she began.

“Irving hasn’t had a chance to tell me much. That Nixie feller talks to beat the clapper of a bell.”

“But you like him, don’t you, Hiram? He’s an awful nice, kind boy.”

“I guess he will be when I get him trained,” returned Hiram equably. “He’s beginnin’ to understand that I’m the cap’n o’ the Betsy.”

“If you knew how disagreeable that sounds, you’d never say it in my presence!”

Hiram lifted the sea-blue eyes, and fixed hers with their gaze.

“That sentence has got more music in it,” he declared slowly, “than any other in the English language. I’ll be good to you, Betsy—as good as a man knows how to be to a woman. You’ve taken care o’ folks for the last twenty years. I want the job o’ takin’ care o’ you the next twenty.”

He looked very manly as he said it, his strong figure leaning square shoulders toward her. A swift vision chased through her brain of her precious boy henceforth busy in the bank by day, and in society by night; of Mrs. Bruce’s increasing querulousness and exactions, stretching out into an indefinite future.

The captain’s fireside, and herself mistress of his hearth and home, suddenly showed with an attraction she had never felt before; as if it were a haven of shelter from that monotonous other future, with its stern sense of duty, and its occasional high-lights.

“I believe you cal’late to tire me out, Hiram.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” he returned, leaning back again and biting his blade of grass.

“Why don’t you ask me about Rosalie?” said Betsy. “What do you know?”

“Why, Irving told me that you found her out there, and wheedled some old gent into payin’ her way back East again, and that she was in Boston now, and that you’re keepin’ an eye on her.”

“Old gentleman!” repeated Betsy indignantly. “If you call yourself one, then he is. He’s just about your age.”

“I’m just the right age to be a bridegroom,” responded Captain Salter promptly.

“I hope Mr. Irving didn’t say anything about this before Mr. Nixon. It’s a secret.”

“No. He got a chance at me alone while we was mendin’ a sail. He told me mum was the word. I’ll bet a cookie, Betsy, that now you’ve got Rosalie in Boston you don’t know what to do with her.”

Betsy gave her one-sided smile, and Hiram continued: “Irving says you think a sight o’ the girl; and I’ve been sort o’ cogitatin’ about the whole business; and I finally made up my mind to tell ye that if ye want her to live with us, I haven’t a mite of objection.”

The speaker could see by his lady-love’s countenance that this bait glittered.

“I had thought, Hiram,” she returned ingratiatingly, “that seein’ you and Rosalie are such good friends, you might let Mrs. Bachelder move over to your place; then Rosalie could go there.”

Captain Salter gave his rare, broad smile.

“My! but you’re a good planner, ain’t you!”

“Would you—would you think of it, Hiram?” she asked, with some timidity.

“Not if I wanted to keep real well, I wouldn’t. Now don’t waste time in foolishness, Betsy. I’ve ben gettin’ ready for ye for years, and I am ready. Everything’s taut and ship-shape, and I’ve got a margin that’ll let Rosalie in, easy. We’ll be as cosy as bugs in rugs next winter.”

Captain Salter was an experienced fisherman. The expression on Betsy’s face was such that he believed the bait was swallowed.

“If obstinacy would get folks into the kingdom,” she observed, “your chances for bein’ an archangel would be real good, Hiram Salter.”

He let the reel spin, and the coveted fish dart away with the line.

“I always did hang onto an idea like a puppy to a root,” he said. “It’s kind o’ ingrained in my nature; but you’ll know best, Betsy. You’ve got to be ’tarnally unselfish to somebody in order to be happy; and you think it over. See if ’tain’t about time you changed the place and kept the pain.”

He rose, and Betsy did also. For a wonder she didn’t answer him.

“Good-night,” he said. “It was real clever of you to let me come this evenin’.”

He did not even take her hand at parting. He lifted the shabby yachting-cap and looked at her narrow, inscrutable face. “Good-night,” he said again, and was gone down the garden-path.

Betsy remained some minutes standing in the same position.

“I meant to ask him a hundred questions.” The reflection rose at last from the confusion of her thoughts. “He’s such a gump it makes it hard to talk to him; keeps goin’ back to say the same thing over and over, just like a poll-parrot, till he puts me out so I don’t know what I did want to say to him.”

As she went into the cottage, the picture of the upright figure, and the clean, bronzed, weather-beaten face went with her.

The appealing blue of Rosalie’s eyes seemed to plead with her. “Oh, if I only knew how she’s gettin’ along!” thought Betsy.

Captain Salter was right to smile into the darkness as he plodded down the street. The fish was darting here and there through the unresisting water after its fright, still proudly conscious of its own volition; but the bait was swallowed. The fisherman believed it was a matter of time, now.