"You are covered with dust and cinders, too!" She took the clothes broom from the rack and began to brush him.

Claude caught her hand. "Don't, please!" he said sharply. "The porter can do that for me."

Enid watched him furtively as he closed and strapped his suitcase. She had often heard that men were cross before breakfast.

"Sure you've forgotten nothing?" he asked before he closed her bag.

"Yes. I never lose things on the train,—do you?"

"Sometimes," he replied guardedly, not looking up as he snapped the catch.

Book Three; Sunrise on the Prairie

I

Claude was to continue farming with his father, and after he returned from his wedding journey, he fell at once to work. The harvest was almost as abundant as that of the summer before, and he was busy in the fields six days a week.

One afternoon in August he came home with his team, watered and fed the horses in a leisurely way, and then entered his house by the back door. Enid, he knew, would not be there. She had gone to Frankfort to a meeting of the Anti-Saloon League. The Prohibition party was bestirring itself in Nebraska that summer, confident of voting the State dry the following year, which purpose it triumphantly accomplished.