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Jerome, there was a brother of his named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else’s fortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letter from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelled of salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and the spelling St. Vitusy.
    It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand and deliver, he had been held up himself, and made to give hostages to the enemy. That is, as his letter disclosed, he was on the point of pegging out with a complication of disorders that even whiskey had failed to check. All that his thirty years of prospecting had netted him was one daughter, nineteen years old, as per invoice, whom he was shipping East, charges prepaid, for Jerome to clothe, feed, educate, comfort, and cherish for the rest of her natural life or until matrimony should them part.
    Old Jerome was a board-walk. Everybody knows that the world is supported by the shoulders of Atlas; and that Atlas stands on a rail-fence; and that the rail-fence is built on a turtle’s back. Now, the turtle has to stand on something; and that is a board-walk made of men like old Jerome.
    I do not know whether immortality shall accrue to man; but if not so, I would like to know when men like old Jerome get what is due them?
    They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeply sunburned and wholesomely good-looking, with a manner that was frankly unsophisticated, yet one that not even a cigar-drummer would intrude upon without thinking twice. Looking at her, somehow you would expect to see her in a short skirt and leather leggings, shooting glass balls or taming mustangs. But in her plain white waist and black skirt she sent you guessing again. With an easy exhibition of strength she swung along a heavy valise, which the uniformed porters tried in vain to wrest from her.
    â€œI am sure we shall be the best of friends,” said Barbara, pecking at the firm, sunburned cheek.
    â€œI hope so,” said Nevada.
    â€œDear little niece,” said old Jerome, “you are as welcome to my house as if it were your father’s own.”
    â€œThanks,” said Nevada.
    â€œAnd I am going to call you ‘cousin,’ ” said Gilbert, with his charming smile.
    â€œTake the valise, please,” said Nevada. “It weighs a million pounds. It’s got samples from six of dad’s old mines in it,” she explained to Barbara. “I calculate they’d assay about nine cents to the thousand tons, but I promised him to bring them along.”
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    II It is a common custom to refer to the usual complications between one man and two ladies, or one lady and two men, or a lady and a man and a nobleman, or—well, any of these problems—as the triangle. But they are never unqualified triangles. They are always isosceles—never equilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert and Barbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of that triangle Barbara formed the hypotenuse.
    One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over the dullest morning paper in the city before setting forth to his downtown fly-trap. He had become quite fond of Nevada, finding in her much of his dead brother’s quiet independence and unsuspicious frankness.
    A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.
    â€œA messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please,” she said. “He’s waiting for an answer.”
    Nevada, who was whistling a Spanish waltz between her teeth, and watching the carriages and autos roll by in the street, took the envelope. She knew it was from Gilbert, before she opened it, by the little gold palette in the upper left-hand corner.
    After tearing it open she pored over the contents for a while, absorbedly. Then, with a serious face, she went and stood at her uncle’s elbow.
    â€œUncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn’t