Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
A Table of Contents has been added.

HOMESTEAD RANCH

"TIRED?" HE ASKED. "IT'S TOUGH THE FIRST TIME YOU COME OVER THIS TRAIL."

HOMESTEAD RANCH

BY

ELIZABETH G. YOUNG

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK : : LONDON : : MCMXXIII

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1915, 1919, by Perry Mason Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
MARY TRACY HORNE
KINDEST OF CRITICS
AND
WISEST OF FRIENDS

CONTENTS

HOMESTEAD RANCH

CHAPTER I

Now that the train had crossed the Rocky Mountains, most of the passengers in the tourist car were becoming bored and restless. The scenery was less absorbing; there was so much of it that even its magnificence had begun to pall! Yet Harriet Holliday was still deeply interested in everything. There were now only a few hours between her and her destination, and she had begun to look at the solitary ranches, wondering whether her brother's would look like them.

The train was passing across a seemingly endless desert, through ranges of hills without a sign of life, without water, grass or trees to break the monotony of sand and sagebrush. Once in a great while there appeared a row of buildings that, Harriet decided, must be a town—a few boxlike stores, a hotel with an imposing cement block front, a straggling line of cabins, some turf-roofed huts, some tents—then abruptly the gray solitude of the desert came into view once more.

Harriet thought of the clustering villages along the Connecticut shore—the white-and-green houses sheltered by elms, the church spire on the hill. Home seemed suddenly unutterably far away. A queer ache surged up in her throat. She felt not only endlessly far in miles from home, but in time, too—as if she had left the year 1912 behind her and come somehow into the vanished days of the first pioneers. To keep back the tears she glanced hastily up and down the car at the people who for several days had been her companions and nearly all of whom had given her glowing accounts of "the West."

A different promise had lured each, and each promise seemed golden. One family had sold the railroad shares from which they had drawn an income and had bought an apple orchard in Oregon. An old couple were on their way to California to invest in an orange grove. A newly married pair were on their way to a timber claim in Washington. A young public school teacher had given up a good position in Chicago to take a district school in Montana where she could homestead. Oddly enough, not one of those to whom Harriet had spoken so far was expecting to settle in Idaho.

Her roving glance came back along the seats. Just in front of her sat a broad-shouldered young fellow, staring out of the window. Harriet could see the boyish curve of his tanned cheek, his freckled nose and his light brown hair. Until this moment she had not set eyes on this young man. He must have got on at Ogden. While she was looking at him he turned and met her inquiring brown eyes with a pair of steady blue ones.

"This is Idaho," he said.

Then he blushed all over his tanned face. He had spoken as if the barren ranges had been mountains of gold, the gray sagebrush desert a vista of lakes and forests and gardens.

Harriet smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I'm glad to know." She was silent a moment; then, curiosity overcoming her reserve, she asked, "Have you any idea how much farther it is to Shoshone?"

"Say! You getting off there? It's the next stop." His blue eyes flashed when Harriet said she was, and he went on: "Homesteaders are coming in like rabbits round a haystack. If you're going to take up land you're wise to come now, before the best of it is all filed on."

"Oh, I'm not going to settle," Harriet protested. "I've been teaching but I have to rest my eyes so I've come out to visit my brother. He has a ranch."

"You'll stay though! I'm just back from Chicago. Took a bunch of cattle. I stayed East two months. Thought I'd like it. Not much! I'm glad I've hit the brush once more." His glance went to the window and seemed to feast hungrily on the gray plains.

Harriet looked out too, trying to see what he could find that lured him.

"You don't know where your brother's homestead is, do you?" he asked. "There are two districts that fellows are coming into; one south of those foothills yonder, the other on Camas Prairie."

"Yes. That's it, Camas Prairie. He sent me pictures of it. Here's one." She had been looking at the photographs a few moments before and drew it from her handbag.

"Well, what do you know about that!" the young fellow exclaimed as he glanced at the three pictures. "That's Sage Hen Springs, all right. There's the big quakin' asp that marks the section line. It's a landmark for all cattle men coming across the prairie."

He laughed to himself as he handed back the pictures. "I was just wondering what Joyce'll say when he finds some one has filed there. He's a sheepman and he's used that glen there for a lambing place for years. He's been meaning to put a man on there for two years anyhow. Yes, sir, I'll bet he's mad when he finds he's lost it."

"Isn't there some other place near by?"

"No, ma'am. That's just it. Water is mighty scarce in these hills anyhow, and Joyce knows the sheep have to have it."

"It's funny that he never took a homestead, living out here so long."

"Oh...." The young fellow hesitated. "He's got one," he said slowly, "but he needs a whole lot more than that."

"But I thought a man could only homestead once," Harriet said in surprise.

"That's right. But there's ways of crawling through the fence when the gate's shut. I shouldn't wonder but he'll try to buy your brother out."

"Oh, Rob would never sell! He's going to raise cattle!"

"That's good money, all right; but if Joyce wants that water hole as bad as I reckon he does, he'll put up a bunch of money for it. Well," he added, glancing out, "we're pretty near there."

Harriet began to collect her luggage and the young man rose. "My name's Garnett," he said hesitatingly. "Maybe we'll meet up on the prairie."

"Oh, I hope so," Harriet said smiling, and held out her hand.

As the train pulled into the station she looked eagerly among the crowd waiting on the platform, but did not see her brother. She had stepped down upon the cindery track and was wondering what she had better do when a voice exclaimed, "Hello, sis! Got here safely, did you?"

"Bobs!" Harriet turned quickly and then faltered. She had expected to find a slim, pale boy, wearing glasses and very fastidious about his collars and neckties. She was facing a big, sunbrowned man without glasses, who wore overalls, a gray flannel shirt, a sheepskin vest and huge laced boots; but he was smiling and he gripped her arm and kissed her.

"Bobs!" she cried. "I didn't know you."

"Don't worry," Rob told her. "You won't know yourself either in six weeks. Let's see. Got your traps? We'll go right over to Kenny's. Supper'll be ready as soon as you've washed the cinders out of your eyes. I've been so busy loading up for the ranch that I almost forgot to meet the train."

"Kenny's," the old hotel of the cattle days before there had been a town, stood just across the street, and every one who had left the train appeared to be going there for supper. When Harriet and Rob went in, a circle of miners, ranchers, sheep herders and cattle men had already gathered around the big office stove. They were gossiping in a cloud of tobacco smoke; another group hung over the clerk's desk.

Among them moved a big, red-cheeked woman, the hotel-keeper's wife. She nodded to Rob. "How do, Mr. Holliday? Your sister's come, I see."

As Rob introduced Harriet to Mrs. Kenny, the good-hearted Irishwoman held out her hand with words of welcome.

The big dining room was rigorously clean; the oilclothed floor almost reflected the electric lights; plates and glasses shone; two trim young women waited on the guests. But the guests themselves! They were all men, dressed in what Harriet mentally called "workmen's clothes"—overalls, flannel shirts, corduroy trousers, vests, but no coats. Unshaved, weatherbeaten, scarred and lined by hard experience, these men seemed as rough and repellent to the dainty, carefully reared girl as the mountains of this stranger land. As she was eating her supper, taking furtive glances down the long table, she heard a voice at her shoulder and saw Rob turn to speak to an old man.

"Axcuse me, Holliday, but it's just a worrud I'm wantin' wit' yourself."

Harriet saw beside her a little, bent old man; his legs were bowed from a life in the saddle and his neck was tanned and wrinkled from years of weathering. He wore a much mended flannel shirt, a drooping vest, and short overalls that revealed gray socks and congress gaiters much run down at heel. Harriet thought that, except for his merry, honest face, he looked very much like a tramp.

She was rather surprised when her brother introduced the old man to her. After greeting her cordially he went on to explain to Rob that he had not, after all, a fresh cow in the herd good enough to sell for a milk cow, but that he would send out the heifers he had promised and a cow that would be fresh in the fall. Then he turned to Harriet, wished her "good luck" and moved away.

"Rob, do all the cowboys dress in that—well, shabby sort of way?" Harriet asked as she and her brother left the dining room together.

"So that's what you didn't like!" said Rob. "Dan Brannan isn't a cowboy though. He's one of the richest cattle men around here. Worth over a hundred thousand, I've heard. That's why he can afford to wear old clothes."

"He might at least be neat."

Rob laughed. "I'll remind you of that some day about two months from now, when you've quit wearing starched shirtwaists."

As they were to start for the ranch early in the morning, they went to bed soon after supper. Harriet fell asleep at once and did not wake until a sharp tattoo rattled on her door.

"Roll out, sis," Rob was calling, "nearly six and we want to hit the trail by seven."

When Harriet came down into the office, she found it thronged, and humming with suppressed excitement.

"The sheriff has just come into town with two horse thieves," Rob explained. "They rounded 'em up on the Malade river, just above here, with a string of ponies. Another of the fellows got away after wounding one of the sheriff's men. It must be cold hiding out in the foothills this time of year. Well, let's eat and move on. We want to make the Hyslop ranch before dark."

As they stepped out into the street after breakfast Harriet shivered. "It's cold at night in the mountains all right," Bob admitted, "but it's hot enough as soon as the sun gets up. You'll see."

Turning the corner to the livery stable he stopped and pointed to a new farm wagon, ready loaded. "That's ours. You get up while I hitch and we'll be off in a jiffy."

Harriet stared at the wagon in dismay. The sloping roof of canvas that was roped over the load looked to her as insurmountable as one of the snow-covered peaks the train had passed. The wagon seat had been lifted from the sockets and was balanced on top of a bale of hay. Several reels of barbed wire, a plow and her trunk gave Harriet a hint of what company she might find herself in if the wagon should roll into the ditch.

She managed, however, to get aboard. While she was watching her brother hitch the team, a clatter of hoofs made them both look up.

"Why, hello, Jones!" Rob exclaimed. "When did you get in?"

"Oh, a day or two ago."

The man on horseback was small, slim and dark. A felt hat shaded his eyes. He glanced at Harriet and said quick and low to Rob:

"Can I speak to you?"

Rob went across the road. The man on horseback leaned forward and began to talk rapidly.

Harriet turned her face away, but now and then she caught a word, a sentence: "if they get onto me," "my brand," "keep it quiet as you can," "I wouldn't say anything at all." And then in a natural tone the stranger said suddenly, "Well, see you later," and rode off.

Rob came back, finished hitching, climbed into the wagon and they started. Harriet expected her brother to say something about the mysterious young man; but although Rob began almost at once to talk, asking all about their father and mother and the life at home since he had left and speaking freely about his own experiences through the past four years, he said nothing at all about the stranger. Harriet was unable to restrain her curiosity.

"Was that a cowboy, Rob?" she asked.

"Who?"

"I mean that man on horseback who was talking to you."

"Oh! That?" Rob hesitated. "Jones, you mean? He's a fellow I've met. He has some horses he wants me to take care of for a while." He stopped, then after a moment added, "If any one asks when I'm not home, just say I'm boarding them for a fellow." He stopped and after a few moment's silence began talking of other things.

There was so much to see and so many questions to ask that Harriet soon forgot about Jones. They were passing through one of the irrigation tracts which marked the new development of the West. Wherever the sagebrush had been cleared from a new piece of land, lay the smooth, level acres: wheat, pasture, young orchard or stubble. The fields were all of one size and were intersected squarely by the irrigation ditches. The barns and dwellings of these ranches were always near the road. Built of new unpainted boards, and unshielded by trees, they glared crudely in the blazing sunshine.

"Pretty good-looking ranches some of these fellows have," observed Rob, nodding toward a forty-acre stretch of young rye, green and flat as a billiard table.

"But how ugly the houses are! And so small!"

"You've got your ideas cut to fit the regulation New England colonial mansion, that's all. When I can afford a shack like that,—" he pointed to the two-room cabin they were passing, "I'll think I'm rich."

"Bobby! The idea. Why, what do you live in now?"

"A tent. I only filed on my homestead this spring, you know, and haven't had time to build. All last winter I was working for wages, feeding cattle for Dan Brannan, getting a line on feeding my own—and ever since I came in on to my land this spring after the break-up I've been so busy getting my springs fenced that I haven't had time to sleep scarcely. You can live in a tent for a while, can't you?"

"Why, of course!" Harriet hesitated, not wanting to hurt her brother's feelings by being too critical. "But where do you keep the food and such things? Is it safe to go away like this and leave it all open?"

"Sure. Who'd steal a few blankets and grub? My nearest neighbor is eight miles away and nobody much passes except cow punchers and sheepmen and they're honest, generally speaking."

Harriet was silent a moment, slowly putting this picture in place of the one imagination had painted. "But won't the cows and sheep get into the garden, spoil the hay or something?"

Over Rob's sunburned face came an embarrassed smile. "Sorry to say there isn't any garden—yet."

"Oh!... Then you haven't a real farm?"

"No, indeed. Not what Easterners would call a farm, but it's worth a lot. It's this way. You see those hills we're climbing up to? Well, my place is over on the other side of them, a quarter section of government land that looks about like this; covered with sagebrush and bunch grass, but I've got some good springs. That's what makes my land worth something. There are thousands of acres of government land like this open to homesteaders, but worthless because there's no water. So the man who owns water, by fencing it, keeps stock away and controls the range near him. All this government land is free pasture; but it's no good without water. There is water—small springs and streams—scattered through the hills, enough to keep a little place, forty acres or so. Those are what people from the East keep coming in and taking up. Men will homestead so long as they can find water, for there's plenty of good land."

"I see," Harriet said slowly, gazing ahead over the interminable miles of gray-green brush and bright, new, wild grass to the jagged, black lava summit of the foothills. "But why didn't you take some land down here?" she asked, with a gesture toward the green-and-gold oasis made by the irrigated land around them.

"Oh, this costs more. The land is cheap but the irrigation water is brought in and you have to pay a lot for that. Besides, this isn't a stock country and that's what I'm after. A fellow ought to make good with all that free range."

Harriet made no answer and for several minutes they rode in silence, the creak of the wagon suggesting many things.

"I meant to tell you all this when I wrote to you," Rob began abruptly. "But honestly, Harry, there was so much that was more important to say that I forgot about the tent and how many miles to the next ranch and so on. I'm so used to living that way that I didn't realize how you might take it. As soon as mother wrote about your eyes, and how discouraged you were at having to give up teaching, I sat down and wrote right off the bat for you to come. It seemed as if it would be the real thing to have you out here this first year on the place. It'll be more like camping than farming. I can't raise a crop until the land's cleared and we ought to get time for lots of fishing and shooting trips up into the Sawtooth forest. The climate is great—not a drop of rain for months at a time. You'll like it, I'm sure. Still, if you don't you can go back any time."

"Of course I'll like it," Harriet, or "Harry," as Rob had always called her, said hurriedly, for she had caught the note of disappointment in her brother's voice and felt a prick of self-reproach at being so critical when Rob had thought only of the benefit to her and the happiness it would be for both of them at being together again.

Although Rob was five years older than his sister they had always been chums through childhood, had written to each other regularly while they were away at separate schools and had never lost interest in each other's work. As soon as Rob had decided to stay in the West he had looked forward to having Harry come out to live with him.

As the morning passed the sun grew hot on their backs. Harry took off her coat and wished for a parasol. Rob with his hat over his eyes slouched forward comfortably and gave his attention to the team. "Rock! Move up there," he ordered. "Get out of that, you! Hit the collar, there, Rye! Keep in the road!"

The last few days of travel had tired Harry more than she realized and now the slow motion of the wagon and the unbroken silence of the desert proved very restful to her. The green of budding sage, of buck brush and rabbit brush and new bunch grass melted into a soft mantle spreading over the world as far as she could see. At long intervals they passed immense flocks of sheep scattered through the brush and among the rocky buttes.

"Who takes care of them?" Harry asked. "I should think their owners would be afraid to leave so many alone."

"They're being taken care of. See that tent up there?" Rob pointed to a patch of white canvas a mile away. "The Mex brings the band out to their feed ground early in the morning, leaves the dogs on guard and then goes back to his tent and sleeps half the day. He won't have to bother with the sheep until it's time to move them to their bedding ground for the night."

"What's a 'Mex'?"

"Oh, short for Mexican. So many of the sheep herders are Mexicans and Bascoes nowadays that people call them all 'Mexes.' That stick up there with the rag on it marks the line between his range and the next herder's and neither of them can cross it to feed. The sheep are all on their way to the reserve now, in the mountains on the other side of the prairie. They stay here in the foothills as long as the grass lasts, then work north. That's when our trouble begins. I expect they'll bother us a lot, since I haven't finished fencing."

"Why, I thought you said you had fenced," Harry exclaimed.

"Just the main springs. Not the whole hundred and sixty acres."

"It must be hard to tell where your land begins and ends," Harry laughed thoughtlessly.

"Oh, I guess I know what's mine," Rob said rather dryly. "It takes considerable wire and posts to get around that much land and money to buy 'em. I had to work like a steer this winter so as to have some cash to put into the place. To comply with the homestead law I've got to have a house built before next winter and clear and plow just so much land. Besides the glen that's fenced, there's two miles of fencing and cross fencing for corral and garden. I'll have to work outside for wages too, to get my feed for next winter; hay and grain for the critters and groceries for you and me."

As he told off the items slowly in a matter-of-course way, Harry realized what a big thing it was he had undertaken. Although he had joked about it, she knew he did not consider it a small one by any means, and for a time she felt not only disappointed by the contrast to what she had expected, but vaguely oppressed.

There was too much else to think of, however, to brood over that. As the day waned they climbed steadily higher. The road became rougher. Often Harriet held her breath as the horses scrambled over a lava ridge, lurched down into a wallow of mud and struggled out only to strike a worse spot farther on. At the top of each rise Rob paused to breathe the team. Several times he and Harriet got down and walked beside the wagon.

"Tired?" he asked. "It's tough the first time you come over this trail, but you'll get used to it."

"I don't mean to travel it often enough."

"You may have to," Rob warned her. "When I'm too busy to go to town I'll send you."

Harry looked back at the rough trail and laughed. "As if I'd travel this rough road alone!"

It was after six o'clock when they topped the last rise and, saw ahead in the shadow of the great cañon walls the string of buildings, haystacks and corrals of the Hyslop ranch.

"We'll camp here, outside the fence," Rob said, as he turned off into the brush and pulled up beside the stream flowing from a fissure in the cañon wall.

It was growing colder now, a dry, clear cold that stirred Harriet's blood and made her realize how hungry she was. While Rob unhitched and fed the team she gathered dry sticks for the fire.

Soon coffee, bacon, and canned beans were on the fire, and, with tin plates in their hands, the two hungry travelers sat down with sighs of anticipation. Harry had taken a first mouthful, when suddenly she pointed. "Look! What is it?"

Rob turned, and saw in the darkness the gleam of yellow eyes. "A coyote!" he exclaimed, overturning his plate as he scrambled to his feet. "If only I had my rifle with me now!"

He snatched up a bit of blazing sagebrush to fling at the animal, which, oddly enough, had not fled.

"Why, it's a dog!" Harry cried suddenly.

Trembling with fear, yet unable to resist the smell of food, the little animal crawled forward until he was close to the fire.

"It's starved, that's what's the matter," declared Harry, who had put down her plate and was coaxing the dog close enough to pat it. "Just feel his poor bones. And look at his foot, too. He's been beaten nearly to death."

"He's hardly more than a puppy. He must belong to some of these herders round here. Brutes some of 'em are. I've heard they'll beat a dog to death if they get mad at him. And they'd even tie up a horse without food or water all day and night. You'd better turn him loose, Harry. If he should belong to a 'Mex' the fellow'll be around after him."

"I'll wait till he comes."

She put down a plate of food for the dog who devoured it with mad hunger. Then he crawled into the shelter of the canvas which Rob had let down beside the wagon as a windbreak, and lay there until supper was finished and the beds unrolled. When Harry lay down in her roll of quilts, the little, black, sheep dog crept up beside her.

"You dear thing," she murmured. "Whoever owned you didn't deserve to, and I'm going to keep you."

For a few moments she was conscious of her strange, new surroundings: the cañon walls, thousands of stars above her, the monotone of the stream. The next she knew daylight was pouring into the cañon, Rob was cutting brush for the fire and the black puppy, shivering silently, was watching her with one eye.

Harry reached out and drew him up beside her. "I'm certainly going to keep you, you little black rascal. You're as black as Othello. There! That's your name."

After breakfast when they were ready to start she lifted the dog up into the wagon. "He can ride, can't he, Bobs?"

Rob smiled but answered gravely: "Honestly, I'd turn him loose, Harry. If you want a dog I'll get you one, in fact we'll have to have one to work for us. But it's risky picking up one that may belong to some crazy sheep herder. You don't realize what these fellows are. Nearly every one of them is off his nut from living alone, and if they do get a notion you're trying to do them out of anything, like as not they'll have it in for you."

"Oh, Bobs! Please don't make me leave him," Harry begged. "See him look at me."

"All right. But don't get scared when some 'Mex' begins to look at him."

"Scared! Just refer any one that wants him to me."

CHAPTER II

After leaving the cañon where they had camped, Rob and Harriet drove through a region of utter desolation. The road wound about among crags and needles of granite that rose high into the air. Then came the flats—a stretch of meadow that lay sunken between the north and south watersheds—and after that a sharp plunge down a narrow trail cut in the face of the mountain to the bottom of Spring Creek cañon.

The snow-swollen stream filled most of the narrow floor of the cañon; the road was a succession of mudholes through which Rob forced the struggling horses. A thick wall of willows along the stream kept the travelers from seeing more than a few feet ahead; the gray walls of the gorge shut off the sunlight and echoed noisily to the shouting creek. To Harry that ride up the cañon was a nightmare of terrifying suspense. Then abruptly it ended; they were out on level ground, sunshine streamed along the valley below them, and across the prairie the Sawtooth Mountains stood shoulder to shoulder, with their summits radiant in the snowy splendor.

"At last!" sighed Harry.

"Not quite," Rob answered. "We go up a little before we reach the ranch. It's on the bench, close to the hills—not on the prairie down there. It's only five miles more."

Turning eastward presently, the road wound along the base of the hills, which were very low here, with only an occasional steep butte jutting out from the range. On the other side the ground fell away gradually to the prairie floor, which was brilliant with its hundreds of acres of young grain, plowed land, pasture, and sagebrush. Harriet was gazing down at the plains, when Rob's voice made her look around sharply.

"There! Now you can see the ranch."

"Trees!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, the only big grove of quaking asp left on this side of the prairie. Every one round here knows that big fellow at the top. There's a real stream, too. With those for a starter it won't take us long to make a home."

There was a new note in Rob's voice—something more than the boyish kindness that had made him so lovable a chum. For a moment Harriet felt very far from him. Then a wave of nobler feeling swept over her. Of course Rob was absorbed in his homestead. Who would not be—owner of 160 acres, and master of his own toil?

Soon Rob left the road and drove through the brush along the edge of a wet, green meadow toward the cañon that opened out from the hills. Along the steep slopes of the hill, trees meandered, and down the cañon a mountain stream came gushing. At the upper edge of the meadow Rob drew up, unhitched the horses, and pitched the tent in the shelter of a spreading clump of willows.

Two weeks later, Harry was standing in the tent, deep in a struggle with her first pie. The cookbook was propped open before her on the plank table, on which cups, spoons, and plates were scattered in profusion.

"Bobs, is that you?" she called, as she heard footsteps outside. "Do look here! This pie crust is such a mess!"

She had arrived at a point where she needed encouragement. The morning was passing; the tent was very hot; flies swarmed everywhere, and her dough-covered hands could not grasp and tuck away the refractory curl that was tickling the end of her nose.

"If you want pies," she went on, "you'd better send for one of your cowboy cooks to come and make them. I can't."

"Excuse me, ma'am. Can I help?"

At the sound of the strange voice Harriet turned, dismayed. In the doorway of the tent stood a dark, slender man eying her questioningly. In his khaki shirt, scarlet neckerchief, silver-trimmed leather "chaps" and broad-brimmed hat he was all that Harry had imagined a cowboy should be. There was something familiar to her in his dark-eyed face; and when he said, "Is Mr. Holliday here? I'm fetching in a bunch of colts—Jones is my name," she remembered at once.

"Mr. Holliday is not here, but please come in, Mr. Jones," she said. "I am his sister."

Jones came into the tent and sat down on a cracker box near the door.

"How do you like Idaho?" he asked.

"I'd like it better if I'd learned to make pies before I came," Harry replied, with a rueful glance at her sticky hands. "Rob has told me how well all the men out in this country can cook. It makes me feel so stupid not to be able to. Rob has tried to show me how to make sour-dough bread and stew frijole beans—with red peppers and garlic, you know. Aren't they awful? Rob likes them, though."

"They ain't so bad," said Jones gravely, turning his hat in his hands and glancing oddly at the girl from under his eyebrows.

"Well, maybe not, when you're very, very hungry. I can manage to cook them, but pie—look at it!" She viciously prodded the glistening, sticky paste. "I guess I'll just throw it away and start fresh."

"Oh, I wouldn't waste it! Ain't you got it a little wet, mebbe?"

"Is that it? What must I do? I'm sure you are laughing in your sleeve at me."

"Not much. I remember what an all-fired mess I had layin' round when I first waded into pie makin'. But now if I was you and you told me to turn that there into hot bread and take a new layout for the pie, I reckon I'd try it."

"Thank you!" Harry laughed. "If I were you, Mr. Jones, and you were I, and I saw you in this fix, do you know what I'd do? Offer to show me—you—how to do it."

With a smile, Jones laid his hat under the table, dipped some water into the hand basin, washed his hands, and came over to the table.

"I'll grease the pans," Harry said. "The apples are ready. And there! I forgot all about the fire. This business of putting in wood every five minutes——"

She put wood into the stove, filled the kettle, stirred the beans, and greased the pans; all the while she watched the new cook as he worked.

"I'd rather organize a fresh batch of dough," he said apologetically. "Makin' it over would be like tryin' to make a cow pony out of a cayuse that's been half broke to a buggy."

In a few minutes he had the pie pans lined, and looked about him for the filling. "Apples, you said, didn't you?"

Harry pointed to a basin overflowing with dried fruit that she had soaked but had not cooked. "Those are the apples I meant to use."

Jones hesitated and grinned. "You wasn't cal'latin' to make them into a pie without bilin' 'em first? It'd be like chewin' on gun waddin! Ain't you got no canned goods?"

From the pile of groceries, dishes, chicken feed, and bedding that Rob had dumped into a corner until he could find time to put up shelves, Harry produced a can of peaches. "This place is in the worst mess," she declared. "We've been here just about two weeks, and Rob is so busy getting post holes dug while the ground is soft that he hasn't time even to think how we live."

"A homesteader has to think of his critters first. Did you say you had the garlic in those beans? They'd ought to bile some smarter if they're for dinner."

When Rob came home at noon, tired, hungry, and expecting a meal of soggy bread and experimental beans, he found dinner waiting for him; the open oven door revealed delicious brown biscuits and an odorous pie. Harry, cool and calm, was setting the table.

"So you got here at last, did you?" Rob said in greeting to Jones.

"Yes, but it's a wonder," Jones replied. "The road's so crooked comin' through the hills that a fellow meets hisself comin' back three times on the way over."

"Did you bring in the horses?"

"Sure. I've got 'em in those trees up yonder. Thought I'd better see you before I put 'em in the corral." He shot a quick glance at Rob.

"No, you don't want 'em there. I've got the glen fenced. There are so many trees in there that it will be cool and protected for the colts, too. Well, let's have dinner, sis; I'm hungry enough to chew nails."

"You'll have just time to wash while I'm dishing up," Harry reminded him.

She had taken pains to set the table attractively—with clean napkins from her little store of linen, with the butter on butter plates, and with a glass of water at each place.

After much splashing outside, Rob reappeared. "Now for grub!" he exclaimed, slumping down on the cracker box. "Come along!" he cried to Jones, who, standing before the looking-glass, was carefully parting his glossy black hair. "Your top's all right."

"You certainly didn't bother to brush yours," Harry said, with a glance at Rob's wet and rumpled hair.

"Oh, it'll do!" Rob hastily smacked his hair flat. "Come along, Jones. That's the trouble with these Western financiers," he added in a loud aside to Harry. "They think too much of their looks." He glanced round the table. "This all the beans you've got, sis?" he asked, eying apprehensively the small dish in which Harry had served the beans.

"No." Harry pointed to the saucepan on the stove.

"Ah! Good work. Beans, Jones? Sure." Rob ladled out huge platefuls for Harry and Jones, swung the saucepan from the stove to the table, helped himself generously, and then calmly set the saucepan down on his clean napkin. "Now, a little condensed milk for the coffee," he said, "then hoist anchor and away."

"I'll have to open a fresh can," Harry said, jumping up. "I threw out the other."

As she went to get it, she failed to see her brother's eyebrows lift in surprise. He said nothing, however, and devoured his dinner hungrily.

"Sis couldn't even turn a flapjack when she first came out," he said to Jones as between them they demolished beans and biscuits. "Never mind, sis, you've earned your salt teaching, and if you keep on like this you'll soon be worth your salt to me."

He winked teasingly, cheerfully unconscious of the fact that Harry's cheeks were flaming with annoyance. Just when Rob should have been nicest, before a stranger, he was particularly horrid!

In a very cold and dignified manner she disclaimed credit for the pie and biscuits, but Rob was so busy eating that he did not notice the reproof in her voice. As soon as dinner was over he got up, reached for his hat, and said, "Come on, Jones, let's go up to the glen."

They stepped outside the tent. Harry heard Rob say in a low voice, "I've been looking for you this long while. Have any trouble getting through?"

"Not much. I didn't give any one a chance to ask questions."

She heard no more and was soon thinking about other things—chiefly about how Rob had changed since coming West. She washed the dishes, straightened up the tent, and was just hanging up her apron, when she heard the men coming back, still talking earnestly.

"It's the only way," Rob was saying. "You can't be sure that these fellows will not find out; and if you can say that—see?"

The next moment they entered the tent. "Where's the ink, Harry?" he asked. As she went to her trunk, he added, "Give us a sheet of paper, too. That's it. Let's go outside, Jones; it's cooler there."

They sat down on the shady side of the tent. Harry heard them talking long and low. After a while Rob came inside, put down the pen and ink, and went out again. Shortly afterward, Jones rode away.

Harry waited, hoping that Rob would come in and tell her what they had been talking about; but he did not. Going to the door, she saw him driving along the fence line, unloading the posts that he had cut that morning in Spring Creek cañon.

Harry felt hurt and irritated. Slowly something hardened in her throat, and setting her lips, she sat down with her mending. When, after a while, Rob came up to get a fresh bag of water, she did not look up or speak.

But Rob was too full of his own thoughts to notice Harry's mood. He drew a cracker box to the table, reached for a scrap of wrapping paper, and was soon deep in figuring. "Twenty-four, six, thirty. Six tons of alfalfa. How many hundred of barley and wheat and oats will it take to winter the stock on, I wonder?" He thrust his legs out under the table, ran his hands through his hair, and stared at the figuring before him.

"Yes, I ought to have three hundred dollars at least, before snow flies," he said. "I will, too, if I stick on the job and nothing happens."

"If nothing happens," Harry repeated, with a short laugh. "Does anything ever happen out here, pleasant or otherwise?"

"Eh? What's started you off? I mean, if the work goes well and we don't get a setback of some kind. Three hundred dollars will see us through the winter, all right."

"'Us!' Don't count me in, please."

"Well, you have got a grouch, sis," said Rob, in some surprise. "What's the matter now? I thought you were here for a year. In fact, I was just going to ask you if you don't want to homestead here."

"Me? Homestead? Never!"

"Why not? I didn't say anything about it before, because I wanted first to see whether you liked it and whether it agreed with you. You're taking hold fine, and I believe we'd make a big thing of it together. There's a hundred and sixty on the coulee just east of the next butte. You've been over it?"

"Yes," Harry admitted. She remembered the swale, the strip of green meadow, the springs breaking from the hillside; it did not compare in value with Rob's land, but it was a good "hundred and sixty."

For a moment Harry had a vision of herself as a ranch owner: riding a cow pony, planting and selling crops, building up a herd of her own, perhaps. Then came swiftly a picture of herself standing alone in the doorway of the cabin, as she had seen the women standing in their doorways watching the train pass their lonely prairie homes. Yes, it would be that way with her, while Rob was off with Jones or some other man. She shook her head.

"I couldn't! I've no money. I can't make any out here. What should I do for clothes and things? It took all I made at home, teaching, to keep me properly dressed."

"You wouldn't need such things here; you'd be a lot better off without them, if you're going to wear yourself out getting them. In a few years you'd have a farm worth something—you and I together could do a lot. As it is, some old cow-puncher'll settle it up, or a sheepman'll grubstake a Mex to prove up on it for him, and the sheep'll eat out the whole range. It wouldn't take you long to commute, only fourteen months, and then, if you didn't like it, you could hike back East. Of course it would cost you two hundred dollars to prove up, but you could make that easily by teaching a district school."

Again Harry hesitated. She remembered suddenly the young school-teacher whom she had met on the train, and who was giving up a good salary to come out and homestead.

"If I have to spend all I'd make teaching merely to prove up, I don't see that I'd be any better off than if I went back home. If I could do something to earn money to put into the ranch it might be worth while."

"Quit throwing things out before they're half used; that would save some money, anyway."

Rob spoke brusquely. He hated to find fault with Harry, but he had wanted to speak before this about her wastefulness, and now she was giving him an excuse.

"Really, Rob, I don't know what you mean." Her tone showed that her pride was hurt. "I thought I was very economical."

"It's not very economical to throw out a tin of milk that's only been used twice—and to cut fresh bacon for fry fat, when there's an old rind hanging on the wall. It's those little things that count up in the long run. I'm not kicking, but since you said you'd like to help, that's as good a way as any."

"And yet you suggest my staying out here. Really, if I'm such a poor manager as you say, I think I'd better go back at once."

"What's the use of talking like that? I guess it's lonesomeness that makes you grouchy. You ought to get out and see some of the other ranchwomen. Why don't you go over to Robinson's. It's only three miles from here, and she'd be tickled to death to have you go to see her."

"Why doesn't she come first? She's been here longer than I have."

"They don't pay much attention to that formal sort of nonsense out here," said Rob. "If you were sick they'd come and nurse you for a week; but most of them have a raft of children, and chores to do besides."

Whistling cheerfully, he went out to his work. Harriet flushed with anger. How rude Rob was! But what could be expected when he had lived so long among these rough Westerners?

Yet under her mortification she felt that he was right and that she was wrong. She had not realized it before. At home her mother and elder sister had provided for the household; and what Harry earned she had, quite as a matter of course, spent upon herself; of course she had had to go without many things that other girls had, and so had thought herself very economical. Rob's economy was not like that. She saw now how often he saved money by fashioning something that she would have thought it necessary to buy—or by getting further use out of something that she would have thrown away. She knew that his was the real spirit of economy.

Nevertheless, she was angry with him, and began to write a homesick letter to her mother. She was deep in a recital of her woes, when a voice interrupted her.

"This Holliday's ranch?" it inquired.

CHAPTER III

A stranger stood in the doorway of the tent. He was short and heavily built, with a big, close-shaven head and small, bright eyes. As Harriet rose and came forward, he smiled reassuringly.

"My brother is not here just now," the girl said. "He has gone after a load of fence posts. Won't you come in?"

"Thanks. I'll sit down out here. It's cooler, I reckon. So you're homesteadin', are you? How do you like it?"

He spoke in such a cheery voice and smiled so pleasantly that Harriet's fears vanished. "To tell the truth, I don't care much for it," she admitted. "It's so very lonely."

"You're right. Homesteadin's hard for a young lady, 'specially one that ain't used to this country. You wa'n't raised out here, I judge, ma'am?"

"Oh, no! We come from Connecticut."

"Say! Connecticut! I'll bet you didn't cal'late to hit the hard pan when you come, neither?" He cocked his head, smiled, and then burst into a ringing laugh.

Harry laughed, too. "If this is 'hard pan,' I certainly didn't expect to hit it."

"Yes, sir, and it'll be a heap harder before you've finished provin' up, too. Summer's fine here in the hills, but when the winter sets in! You goin' to stick it out the three years?"

"Oh, no! I'm going back. I haven't taken a homestead myself; this is my brother's. I'm only visiting him."

"What's he goin' to do here, anyhow?"

"Make a ranch, I guess."

"A ranch? Why, it'll take twenty years for him to get the brush off this and get it all into crops. 'Tain't fit for nothin' but grazing. You know what he'd ought to have done? Took forty acres down in the Twin Falls district. There's where they're makin' money. That's the place for you young folks from back East to get in and make a strike. You'd have easy sleddin' all the way, and make money, too. But this here—"

He stopped as if he did not care to say too much, and looked off across the sagebrush.

Harry had listened, interested at first, and then surprised and disturbed. Poor Rob! He did not know what he had got into. And oh, how thankful she was that she, too, had not filed a claim!

At that moment Rob came around the corner of the tent.

"How do!" he said, and stopped.

"This Mr. Holliday?" asked the stranger. "My name's Joyce."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Joyce." Rob sat down on the grass and took off his hat. "Got any fresh water there, Harry?" he asked.

"Fencing's a big job," he said, as he drained the dipper. "The ground's getting dry now, too, so I have to work fast."

"Yes. It's a hard proposition all through," answered Joyce. He was silent a moment, and then began abruptly, "I've been telling your sister here what you could do over on the south side; how much better off you would be with forty acres there than with a hundred and sixty here."

"You an agent for the Twin Falls' tract?" asked Rob, with a smile.

"No, sir. I'm a sheepman; but I've got eighty acres down there, and I know what it's going to be. A young fellow like you with brains and spunk could make a fortune there in a few years. Here you'll spend a lifetime gettin' a living."

He went on to give a glowing account of the farming on the south side of the Snake River—a tract that an irrigation company had lately opened.

"See here," he said suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll exchange forty acres there, all proved up on, only a few payments left, for your homestead, if you'll commute on it. And I'm offering you the biggest price you'll ever get for it."

"Why do you offer it if it's so big? Why don't you keep your forty?"

"Well, it's just this way: I've got to have a water hole here for lambing. I've been coming here on my way to the reserve for twenty years. Never thought of filing on this land it's so poor, nothing but the water here but that's what makes it valuable to us stockmen."

"That's what makes it valuable to me. I'm going to run cattle."

Joyce laughed loudly. "My boy, cattle would starve where sheep grow fat. You'll be flat broke in five years."

"Why haven't you taken it up before?" asked Rob. "It's been here a good while."

"Well, us stockmen have got so used to having all the wild land we wanted that we haven't realized until too late that you fellows are coming in here and taking it all up."

"Then I'm not the only greenhorn from back East who thinks it's good for something."

"If you'll sell out to me, you'll never regret it."

"If I ever decide to sell out, I'll give you first chance to bid on it," Rob promised; and that was as much as Joyce could get out of him.

When Joyce was leaving, he turned in his saddle and called:

"Well, so long, Holliday! Mebbe you'll be sorry you didn't close with me when the sheep begin coming in."

A day or two after Joyce's visit, Harry called the dog—she had shortened Othello to 'Thello by this time—and went down to the side of the hundred and sixty where Rob was fencing. Having so little to occupy her time, she frequently went out to walk in the afternoon, and joined her brother on her way home; but this was the first time she had gone down so early, and she found the brush, under the afternoon sun, a very different place from what it had looked from the shade of the quaking aspens.

Out in the brush there was no shade; even the largest clumps of sage, some as high as her head, gave little refuge from the glare of the sun. The desert, lying silent in the sunshine and heat, seemed to fill the visible universe, and to absorb all significance from the tiny human motes that inhabited it. What, Harry asked herself, could Rob do singlehanded against that inert opponent?

As she watched him bore one hole after another, driving the post-hole digger down through the gravel and earth, repeating monotonously the same motions, never resting, seldom speaking, pausing only to pour a drink of water down his throat or to wipe the sweat from his face with his torn sleeve, he seemed to her to have become a helpless automaton that had been wound up and set going for the amusement of some invisible spectator.

Harry was discovering that the West was very different from the picturesque idea she had had of it. Her part in it, too, was not the picturesque part she had thought to play. Harry saw the West only from its unromantic exterior; not—as Rob was seeing it—as the foundation for as great a romance as the world has ever seen: the transforming of the waste places of the earth into a garden of plenty.

If Rob had only told her of the dreams and plans that inspired him—but Rob was no talker. Now, as Harry watched him, she felt only the vague discomfort of pity for his overwhelming task.

The heat made her sick, the glare tortured her eyes; she was afraid of the lizards and horned toads that darted across the sand about her; but if she went back to the tent she knew that she would soon become lonely and homesick. She decided to take a short walk. Looking over her shoulder toward the foothills, she frowned questioningly.

"Rob, who is that up there?"

"Hey?" Rob straightened himself laboriously and glanced in the direction in which she pointed.

As yet no sheep had bothered them. One or two flocks had come down from the foothills on their way across to the reserve, but Rob had warned them off. Seeing that their favorite bedding ground had been filed on, the herders had pushed on to the "scab" land.

"Aren't those sheep?" asked Harry.

"They are," Rob said slowly. Resting on his shovel, he gazed up at the point where the buttes divided to form a deep coulee.

The leaders of the flock had come rather slowly over the crest of the hill, but now the whole herd came pouring down the glen. The thousand or more animals bleated crazily as they smelled the water and the deep, rich grass below them. Two sheep dogs maneuvered them with short, sharp yelps, glancing back for directions to the sheep herder who stood above and with his hat signaled to them what to do.

Walking toward the glen, Rob motioned to the sheep herder to come down. At first the man paid no attention, but when Rob had whistled sharply two or three times, he slowly began to descend the hill.

"He doesn't want to hear me," Rob said. "You'll see. He'll pretend he doesn't understand. Those Mexes are a coony lot; pretend to be stupid, but are sharp as nails when it comes to hanging on to a good grazing ground."

Watching the sheep flow along, Rob and Harry waited. After a while the herder came down the glen toward them.

"Say, he's not a Mex at all!" Rob exclaimed. "He's an American! It must be that herder of Joyce's."

The herder, who was a good-looking, heavily built fellow about twenty years old, stopped and looked at Rob without speaking. His felt hat was drawn forward over his eyes. He carried a heavy stick that was thick and knotted at the end.

"How do!" he said, glancing inquiringly from brother to sister.

"I suppose you know that this land has been filed on?" Rob began. "I'll have to ask you not to herd your sheep in 'round here."

"Who's filed on it?"

"I have."

"I don't see no fence."

"I've just come on, and haven't got the fence up yet; but it's mine, just the same."

"Well, I don't know if it is," the young fellow replied insolently. His eyes were fastened upon 'Thello, who, crouching at Harry's feet, had been growling at him.

"Where'd you get that pup?" he asked shortly. "He's mine."

"Yours?" Rob's voice was quiet, but his blood was hot. "I don't see any collar."

An angry glint shot from the herder's eyes. "He's mine, just the same."

"I don't know if he is."

"Well, I'm going to have him!" the man muttered, and made a move toward the dog.

But Harry was quicker. Sweeping 'Thello into her arms, she stepped back.

"Whoever owned him didn't deserve to!" she cried. "The poor little thing had been starved and beaten nearly to death when we found him, and I'm not going to let him go."

The way in which Harry spoke the words, with her head thrown back and her brown eyes shining, carried a challenge; the sheep herder's fist tightened on his stick and his face darkened. Then, without a word, he shrugged his shoulders and moved off.

"Remember," called Rob, "you're to feed on the slopes. I want the meadows for my own stock, and if you aren't careful, I'll have you moved outside the two-mile limit."

The fellow stopped, looked back at them, and then answered, "I reckon you can't do just that. I've filed on the homestead just east of this here one. My name's Boykin, if you want to look it up." Turning, he went on.

There was a minute of silence. Then Rob said slowly, "The homestead east; the land I meant you to take."

Harry could not answer. A queer, surprising shame and regret held her silent.

She and Rob walked down to the tent without speaking a word. Anything that Rob might have said would have sounded like a reproach, and of what use, he thought, would that have been now? Harry longed to have him speak, nevertheless, to have him say something that would show how he did feel. She was much relieved when at last he broke the silence.

"Who's that coming?" he said abruptly. "I believe it's Brannan with the cow and those heifers."

A cloud of dust was puffing along the road toward the ranch, and through it they saw a man on horseback, with the half-dozen head of cattle which Rob had bought. When they came nearer Harry recognized the little man as the same who had spoken to Rob in the hotel at Shoshone.

They hurried across the meadow to the corral; without waiting for them Dan had opened the gate and begun to drive in the cattle.

Tired, suspicious and frightened, they refused to enter and started off, each in a different direction, but they had reckoned without the old "cow puncher." Harry had smiled to herself when first she saw the wizened old man perched upon his big hay horse; but her amusement gave way to wonder and admiration when he began to work the "critters" back toward the corral.

Bellowing and kicking they dodged and ran but Dan, with his dog and his whip, steered them back and drove them finally through the gateway.

Harry, Rob and Dan looked proudly at the cattle.

"A nice bunch of critters," said Rob.

"They are that," Dan assented gravely. "As good as any I have and I've the best herd in the valley. Now ye've the last word whin some felly picks on 'em."

"A good start is half the journey," said Rob, "and I'm obliged to you. Come up to the tent, Dan. It's hot work riding on a day like this, and sis will make us some lemonade."

"I see you've the sheep still wid ye." Dan nodded toward the hillside.

"Got 'em for keeps." Rob went on to tell what he had just found out. "The worst of it is," he said, "that that herder is a mean one, and Joyce is a mean one, too; so between them I guess I'm in for trouble."

Dan nodded. "Y'are. Niver did ye say truer worrud. Meanness is the cud thim two niver swallys. But I'll be tellin' ye a thing, lad."

He leaned forward and laid his hand on Rob's knee. "Ye don't want to let thim think ye're beaten. That Joyce has half a dozen homesteads a'ready that he's paid his herders to file on, for sure! But kape yer eyes open, and might be you'd find a way to come up with him yet."

"I'm afraid a tenderfoot like me hasn't much of a show against an old-timer like him."

"Niver say it. There niver was a rashcal yit that didn't lave wan footprint at least in the mud, smart as he'd be, and it's mebbe you that's the lad wit' the eyes to see it. Watch him, Rob, watch him."

Rob shook his head, yet nevertheless he felt a glow of hope in his heart.

That evening, just before bedtime, Jones returned to the ranch, spread his quilt on the dry grass under a tree and became one of the family. He was good company, and Harry would have been glad to have him about, except that he took so much of Rob's attention. Every morning at sunrise the two began to work with the colts, breaking them one by one to bit and bridle, and then to harness and wagon.

As soon as the forenoon grew warm, they shut the colts in the meadow at the head of the draw. This was a natural pasture lot, watered by a spring that flowed from the rocks under the next lift in the foothills and sheltered on all sides by trees. Here the horses were safe and the boys paid no more attention to them throughout the day. Jones always rode away through the valley while Rob plowed, went on with his task of fencing, or did some work in the garden. After supper the boys resumed their business of breaking the colts.

Twice Jones had ridden away in the evening taking one or more of the harness-broken horses with him and had returned some days later without them. Harry supposed that he had sold them. Neither Rob nor Jones ever talked about the horses in her presence and she had soon understood that she was not expected to ask questions about them.

One morning Rob asked his sister to put up some lunch for Jones and himself because they were going down the valley on business.

Harry put up the lunch and stood watching while they mounted and rode off. Among the string of horses which Jones had brought in were two well broken to saddle, a black and a sorrel, and to-day the boys each rode one of them. These two horses had run loose for so long a time that they were as frisky and spirited as the colts. As the little party swept away across the wild prairie the girl longed ardently to be with them. She liked to ride—Rob had been teaching her—and it did seem hard that she should not be allowed to go along on such trips as these, simply because she was not considered a proper person to share a secret.

Hurt pride mingled with resentment struggled together in her breast. It was hard to think that she was still outside Rob's deeper interests. Her life had, for the moment, lost its zest. She finished tidying up the tent, then went down to the garden determined to be interested in her own tasks, for the planting and weeding of the vegetables that Rob, overwhelmed in the press of work, had been forced to leave to her.

She put in several rows of root vegetables, a second planting of peas and beans and was trying to feel enthusiastic about planting corn when a soft crooning call made her turn.

At first nothing living was to be seen. Then a quiver amongst the tall weeds and grass along the stream caught her eye, and there came into sight a sage hen leading her brood of five chicks. Advancing sedately, craning her long neck to keep watch on every side, pausing to strip the seeds from various weeds, crooning her furtive call to her young, the mother bird moved upstream toward the cool shade of the cañon. Suddenly her black, inquiring eye met Harry's friendly but eager stare. For an instant the hen stood motionless, her gray-brown coloring blending her confusingly with the sand and sagebrush of the hillside behind her. Then, with a short, whistling call she dropped low and Harry saw her and the baby chickens slither off toward the willows.

With a sudden determination to follow and have a closer look at these, her nearest neighbors, Harry dropped her hoe in the fence corner, shut 'Thello inside the garden so he could not chase the birds, and slipped quietly up the draw after them.

CHAPTER IV

For some minutes Harry walked along the stream without seeing or hearing the sage hen. But this bit of discouragement only increased her interest. How could they hide so quickly without flying? The chicks were too young to fly and surely the hen would not desert them! No, there they were now!

Harry felt her blood quicken with interest as the covey of bark-gray birds slid across a sun patch beyond the willows and vanished again amongst the quaking asps higher up. So absorbed did she become in this game of hide and seek that she never once thought of the meadow pasture and it was only as she made a detour to avoid a great patch of fire-weed that she came alongside the fence. At the same moment, she saw a man come riding slowly across the shoulder of the hill. He appeared to be watching for something, for he rode slowly and looked about.

Harry stood perfectly still, hoping he would not catch sight of her. But her light dress at once caught the rider's eyes and before she could move he was riding toward her.

He was a tall, big-shouldered young fellow, dressed in cowboy fashion.

"Seen any strays round here, ma'am?" he asked, lifting his hat. "I'm looking for one."

"Strays? Horses, you mean?" Harry stammered.

The sound of the stranger's voice had recalled something to the girl's mind. She had seen this man before. His voice, his smooth, freckled face, his blue eyes—she knew them. She blushed with confusion, for the young man was looking at her intently.

"I don't believe there've been any strays here," she said. "My brother might know."

"Your brother down at the tent yonder?"

"No, not now. He's gone off with—with another man."

"You ain't got no horses of your own here that mine could ha' got in with?"

"No—yes—I mean we're boarding some horses, but they're colts and inside the pasture, and I'm sure there are no strays among them."

The stranger had dismounted and, leading his horse, was walking beside her.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Ain't I seen you before?" he asked.

"That's what I was wondering," Harry laughed. "But I can't remember your name. Mine is Harriet Holliday."

"Sure thing! It was comin' up in the train, wasn't it? Mine's Chris Garnett."

At once Harry remembered. After telling each other that they were glad to meet again, they walked on toward the tent. "Whose horses are those?" Garnett asked, pointing at the big team in the corral.

"Oh, that's the work team!"

"I thought you said your brother was off."

"Yes, he's riding one of the horses we're boarding."

"A colt?"

"No, you see there were two old—I mean good, broken horses in the bunch. Rob and the fellow who owns the horses are riding them."

Harry's explanation was somewhat jerky. The subject of Jones and his horses still rankled in her, and she could not speak of them naturally. Garnett looked at her gravely. She felt the color rush into her face and her eyes fell.

"You must stay and have some lunch," she said at last, trying to turn the conversation away from the painful subject. "I haven't a hot dinner, because the boys aren't going to be home, but I'd like to have you stay."

To her surprise Garnett readily accepted her invitation. While she was setting the table, she kept stealing glances at him, and tried to harmonize her memory of the very boyish person she had met on the train with this quiet young man. He was the same big, friendly fellow, with the same laughter-wrinkled eyes; but now there was something beneath his reserve that she could not quite understand. Sitting cross-legged on the grass outside the tent, he played with 'Thello, and talked casually to Harry while she moved about inside. All the restraint of the first moments had apparently passed; Garnett said nothing more about the horses until he left, an hour later.

"If that pony of mine should come in here," he said, turning in his saddle, "I'd be a lot obliged to you if you'd send me a line. Soldier's my post office. That horse of mine is about six years old, sorrel, ring-and-arrow brand. You'd notice him in a bunch of cayuses."

A sorrel! Harry's thoughts flashed to the sorrel horse which Rob had ridden away that morning. She felt a pang of vague apprehension, and wondered whether Garnett had noticed her startled look.

When Garnett had gone, she tried to reassure herself. Of course anything that Rob took an interest in was all right; but why did he keep it a secret from her? Suppose that sorrel horse should prove to have the ring-and-arrow brand? There might be many sorrels with that brand, yet her heart beat more nervously and her lips grew dry.

An idea came to her, and she ran up the glen toward the pasture where the colts were hidden. She knew that the sorrel was not there, but she wanted to see whether the colts were branded.

When she reached the upper end of the glen she crawled through the barbed wire, and was just emerging from the shelter of the trees when she saw Garnett ride along the fence and look at the bunch of colts inside.

Harry stepped back, instinctively afraid of his seeing her. Why? She demanded it of herself fiercely. Why should she feel guilty because Rob was concealing something from her? She had done nothing wrong. But Garnett suspected something; he had not believed her.

Humiliation swept over her. Even after Garnett, satisfied that his horse was not there, had ridden away, and after she had returned to the tent, her cheeks burned at the thought, "He did not believe me."

She determined to tell Rob about the whole affair and to make him explain the mystery. Also, she would look at the brand on that sorrel horse.

But Rob and Jones did not get home until ten o'clock. They were very tired and hungry, and Harry was so busy getting supper for them that she did not have a chance to go into the matter.

The next morning Jones rode away on the black horse. When Rob had gone down to the brush to work on the fence, Harry ran out to the corral and looked at the sorrel. The brand was perfectly plain—ring and arrow!

Her first impulse was to go out to Rob and tell him all about Garnett's visit; but when she thought of how completely Rob's work always absorbed him, she hesitated. After all, what was the use of breaking into his morning's toil with her story? She might just as well wait until noon.

As she stood, irresolute, her gaze wandered to the distant prairie. Now, early in June, every minute of the day brought some new and lovelier expression of nature's magic to view; the color that filled the valley was slowly deepening with the unfolding year. Far down the prairie spread the green wheat fields, the squares of alfalfa and plowed land, the pale clouds of pink where the fruit trees were in bloom. Through the crystalline air the curve of hill and hollow shimmered resplendent.

Harry's eyes grew vague while she pondered. For the first time her heart went out to her new surroundings. She had been stupid to shut herself out from partaking of this land. She turned restlessly back into the tent.

Regret for not having filed on the land next to Rob's and the thought of Jones and the sorrel horse worried her. It was intolerable to think of settling down to humdrum tasks of housework or garden. Calling 'Thello she set off up the draw in the dumb desire of "working it off" outdoors.

The narrow vale between the towering buttes was now at its loveliest. Bees buzzed in the wild rose thickets; wild flowers of vivid colors—scarlet, blue, violet and yellow—dappled the earth at her feet and even splashed the sides of the barren buttes. Along the stream, where the ground was always moist, a dense tangle of weeds and vines had sprung up and, with the willows, made it difficult to get through except in certain places.

Harry followed the same course she had taken the day before when following the sage hen. But this morning she noticed how differently the ground appeared. The willows had been broken through; the vines had been torn away; and the stream had been trodden into a slough by countless hoofs. Some cattle had come through on their way to the hills, but they had kept to the draw farther east. 'Thello sniffed suspiciously and Harry wondered what had been there; but as she crossed the brook for the last time and came out onto the meadow she stopped short. A great flock of sheep were feeding. Spread out round the verdant basin they were eating silently, steadily, greedily, with short, close-cropping nibbles that would leave nothing but the bare ground of the rich pasture before them. At sight of her, one or two ewes "blatted" and moved on, but the others were too busy feeding to notice her.

Harry's first astonishment flared suddenly into sharp indignation. She looked round and saw the herder watching her from a rocky knoll near by. "Please come down here!" she called sharply, and then added to herself, "It's that Boykin—the one Rob ordered off before. Miserable creature!"

He came down very slowly and stood before her much as he had stood before Rob, with his eyes smouldering under his half-shut lids.

"Well, come to fetch me my dog?" he drawled.

"Your dog! Didn't my brother tell you not to feed down here? This is our pasture."

"Is it?"

"Yes, you know it is. And you had better drive your sheep off right away, too."

"Had I?"

"Yes, at once." Even as she spoke Harry felt how empty her words were. "You know perfectly well that you have no right on our land. You're spoiling the pasture, and the stream, too. I wondered what had made the water taste so queer. It's because your sheep have been in it."

"If you don't like it, I reckon you can dip out of another spring. There's plenty in these hills."

"How dare you talk so!" Harry was trembling nervously. "You shall see whether we'll put up with such lawlessness!"

She flew home, with her cheeks hot with anger, and with the sheep herder's laugh echoing in her ears. When she entered the tent she found Rob there.

"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "you remember that herder you told not to come in here? He's up in the glen now. I've just seen him. I told him to go, but he won't. He laughed."

Rob walked to the door. "Will dinner be ready by twelve, sis?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"I'm hungry," he said quietly. "It's eleven now."

Harry stared at him. "You aren't going up there?"

"Yes, after dinner. He'll be there until then, won't he? If I knew where to find the camp tender, I'd tell him a thing or two about that herder—make the whole outfit clear out. I don't care if Joyce has put him on the next homestead, I filed here first, and he has no right to put the man on there, anyway. I don't know whether there's any law in this country, but if there is——"

He left the tent abruptly.

Harry began mechanically to get dinner. When it was ready, she blew the horn and Rob came in. He said nothing about the sheep herder, but ate his dinner calmly. At the end of the noon hour he rose, went to the door, and stood looking out.

"I don't know how I'm going to keep those fellows off," he said, half to himself. "I can't let my work go, to be chasing them all the time." He pushed up his hat and scratched his head dubiously.

"Of course not; but if they're going to ruin our drinking water and eat all the grass——"

"Oh, I'm going to drive this outfit away!" he said, as he went out.

In her anger and excitement over the sheep, Harry had completely forgotten Garnett and his horse. She began to gather up the dishes, and then, leaving everything, ran outside. A queer excitement filled her. She wondered what Rob would do. He had disappeared beyond the willows and for some minutes all was silent. From where she stood she could see, above the top of the grove, the rocky slope of the hillside running across the end of the cañon. Suddenly, from that hillside a cloud of dust began to rise. Harry could hear nothing, but in a few moments she saw the sheep spread up over the hill and scatter in all directions. The dust rose in blinding clouds; the sheep, catching the panic from their leaders, fled wildly, and finally disappeared round the hilltop. Harry sighed contentedly and went back to her dishes. Rob would soon come in and tell her what had happened. Absorbed in her work, she quite forgot Rob. Not until some time later, when she had hung up her apron and was putting on her hat with the idea of joining him at his work, did she remember where he had gone.

"Something must have happened!" she exclaimed. "He's been gone almost an hour." She went outside and looked up toward the glen. All was quiet; she could see no sheep or dust. "He's probably gone on over the hills," she decided, "driving them off so far that they cannot come back."

Satisfying herself with that explanation, she went inside and sat down to do some mending. In a few moments her brother came slowly into the tent.

"Rob!" she cried out. "What is it?"

His face looked strange, and he stared at her without answering. She took a quick step forward and drew a terrified breath. His hair was matted with blood; blood oozed from a gash on his forehead; and as she felt him over with trembling hands, she touched a bruise, swollen and dark, at the base of his skull.

"Oh, Bobs! What has happened to you, dear? Oh, he's fainting! Bobs, don't! Oh, what shall I do!"

Rob had turned very white; he swayed dizzily, and then caught himself.

"I'll lie down a while!" he muttered. "Feel pretty mean. That fellow beat me up. Jumped out on me from the bushes before I saw him. I'd run the sheep up the hill—was waiting to see if they'd come back. He knocked me over—kept beating me. Must have fainted."

His words trailed away and his face grew moist with sweat. Stumbling to the bed, he dropped down on it.

Harry had never seen a person faint, and for a moment she hung over Rob, staring at him. The sight of his familiar face, bloodless under the tan, so solemn, quiet, and strange, filled her heart with a passion of remorse. What ought she to do?

The only restorative at hand was cold water. She bathed Rob's forehead, rubbed his hands, and tried to force a drink between his teeth.

Then unexpectedly Rob stirred, opened his eyes, drew a slow breath, and smiled.

"All right, sis," he murmured. "—Just rest a while."

Harry smiled back; then she ran outside the tent and burst into tears.

"I must get a doctor," she murmured, when she got control of herself.

Returning to the tent, she bathed and bandaged her brother's wounds. The cut on his scalp was bleeding steadily, though slowly; the bruise at the base of his skull was swollen and throbbing. He was quite conscious now, but very weak and dizzy from pain; and, although he answered her when she spoke, he evidently wanted to rest and sleep.

"How in the world am I ever to go after a doctor?" she thought desperately. "I can't harness the team or even put a saddle on the pony. If I had only, only learned! I suppose I shall have to walk to Robinson's and get them to go to Soldier for me. It means leaving Rob alone for hours. How can I ever do it?"

Tears blinded her as she stared down at him.

"And it's all my fault!" she groaned. "It would never have happened if I hadn't been so hateful—hadn't made him go, had taken the homestead, hadn't kept 'Thello in the first place!"

She felt very remorseful and penitent. When she had made Rob as comfortable as she could, and had put water close beside him, she set out. The fear that Rob would die haunted her. Sometimes so sharp and heavy was the pain of leaving him there alone, and so dreadful the fear of what she might have to face on her return, that she wavered and looked back.

Only the knowledge that her brother's need of a doctor was greater and more urgent than his need of her drove her on. Through the heat and the dust and the white glare, she hurried, hurried, hurried. As she rounded each butte in succession and saw the empty road curving far ahead round another, she wondered passionately how much farther Robinson's was.

CHAPTER V

Harry was beginning to think that she had lost her way, when suddenly, as she topped a rise in the road, she saw the Robinson ranch lying below her beside the mouth of a coulee. Barns, sheds, corrals, pens, haystacks, and ranch house lay scattered along the fence near the road. The buildings, which were of unpainted boards, weathered to the gray of the desert, reminded her of the houses she had seen from the train; but the path from the gate to the door of the ranch house was bordered with flowers, and the yard, which was separated from the farm fields by a fence, was neatly planted with vegetables and fruit trees.

A chorus of loud barks announced Harry's arrival. At once the door of the house was opened a crack and several children, with yellow, tousled heads, peered out. As Harry approached, the children promptly shut the door, but at her knock a young woman with a fat, smiling baby on her arm, opened it.

"How do? Come in, won't you?" said the woman.

"Is this Mrs. Robinson?" asked Harry, on the threshold. "I'm Miss Holliday."

"Glad to make your acquaintance. Set down. You look tired. Norma, let the lady set in that chair." She drew a small girl from a plush rocking-chair and dragged it forward.

"Thank you, I can't stop. My brother has been hurt terribly. A sheep herder attacked him and beat him almost to death. He must have a doctor at once. Can you send to town for me?"

Harry spoke rapidly. She was spent with weariness and heartache, and the mention of Rob brought a strangling sob to her throat.

"How about! Mr. Holliday hurt!" Mrs. Robinson set the baby on the floor, and putting her hands on her hips, stared in mingled curiosity and sympathy at her visitor, and poured out questions and exclamations.

Wiping her forehead nervously with her handkerchief, Harry had turned abruptly away. She shrank from the eager interest of a stranger, and had to force herself to answer the woman's questions. "It's an imposition, I know, to ask you to send to town for the doctor," she said, "but I can't leave my brother alone long enough to go, and I don't know how to ride very well, anyway."

"Sakes alive, girlie! Nobody don't have to ride to git him. You kin just phone over. There's the phone right there. P'r'aps I better ring him up for you. Like's not he's at the hotel gassin', 'stead of in his office."

Harry was only too glad not to have to repeat her troubles to the doctor; she sat limply in the rocking-chair and fanned herself with her hat, while Mrs. Robinson hunted vocally among the front stoops in town for "Doc" Bundy.

"If a body was to wait for him to come to his office," declared Mrs. Robinson, "we could all die of old age before ever seein' him. I got him, though. He's to the drug store gittin' him some sody. Hello, that you, Doc? Yep, Mrs. Robinson. 'Tain't for us. Listen while I tell you, so's you can come on."

When she had finished a lengthy description of Rob, his ranch, the quarrel, and Rob's injuries, and had adjured the doctor to hurry and to bring the sheriff with him, Mrs. Robinson dropped into her chair and prepared to enjoy her visitor's call; but when she looked at Harry's face, she exclaimed:

"You pore thing! You're all beat out, 'ain't you? You're as white as curdled milk. See here! You catch hold of the young one and I'll hook up the rig and carry you back home. Vashti can look out for the others and get her dad's supper. I'll call her now."

Mrs. Robinson left the room followed by three or four tow-headed youngsters, who were clamoring for bread and jam. Harry, with the baby on her knee, leaned back in the plush rocking-chair and looked vaguely about her. Evidently this was the room where the family lived, for besides the big cookstove and the table covered with oilcloth, there were a plush-covered lounge, a phonograph, and a very new, shiny bureau with an immense plate-glass mirror. The Robinsons had money to spend if not good taste in spending it, she decided; at the same time she noticed the unpapered board walls, which were decorated with gaudy calendars and advertising posters, and the china, which had evidently been recruited from "prize package" cereal boxes.

Although Mrs. Robinson might be ignorant and crude, Harry gratefully admitted that she was kind-hearted to drive her home at that time of day. Hearing the rumble of wheels and the voice of her hostess giving swift and numerous orders, she went to the door and looked out. The "rig," as Mrs. Robinson had called it, was a light, mud-spattered mountain wagon, drawn by a team of half-broken ponies that laid their ears back and showed the whites of their eyes alarmingly. Mrs. Robinson sat in the front seat, with one foot on the brake.

"Oughtn't the baby to have something more on?" asked Harry, glancing at the child's bare feet and gingham slip.

"How about! Vashti," Mrs. Robinson called to the big-boned girl of twelve who watched them from the doorstep, "you fetch ma's shawl off the bed. And remember now, the beans is all cooked; there's pie, and your dad likes plenty of lard in his hot bread. And be sure to get them young ones to bed early, or I'll warm their jackets for 'em when I get back."

As they drove out of the gate, Mrs. Robinson left an ever louder stream of directions flowing behind her, until a drop in the road hid the house from sight. Then she sighed abruptly and became silent.

"It's very kind of you to drive me home," began Harry. "I appreciate it immensely; but what will your husband think?"

"Oh, he won't care. He can do for hisself as good as any woman. Men folks in this country most always learn to housekeep when they're bachin' it. Why, we were married when I was fifteen, and came out here from Nebrasky, and there wasn't another woman in twenty miles to turn to for help. But Robinson, he could show me hisself!"

"At fifteen!" exclaimed Harry. "Why, you were just a child! Weren't you lonely?"

"I guess not! There was too much to do. I was likely to be called on any day to finish seedin', or hayin', or help butcher, or what not, so be he was short-handed."

"But now, with all your little children to take care of," Harry began, but she stopped short.

She had been watching the little cayuse ponies, divided between fear of their suddenly running away and admiration of the cool steadiness with which Mrs. Robinson held them in check; but as they went down the bank of a creek that had been dug out deep by the spring freshet, the woman's foot slipped from the brake and the wagon rolled upon the ponies' heels. Mrs. Robinson pulled up hard on the reins, but the ponies plunged, clattered across the shallow ford, and, with their ears back, dashed up the opposite bank.

"Now, you ornery varmints! Quit it! Quit it! Yes, you will, too! Whoa, you! If I don't beat the buttons off you for that!"

Pouring a vivid flood of language upon the ponies, Mrs. Robinson threw the brake and sawed sharply at their mouths. Suddenly there was a jerk and a snap; the cheek strap of the off horse's bridle swung loose.

Harry saw the leather strap fly back, and saw the pony shake its head and shy; involuntarily she pressed the baby close to her. But Mrs. Robinson was too quick for the cayuse. Pulling the ponies square across the road, she faced them toward the boulders that marked the edge of the "bench"; then, whipping the lines round the brake, she stepped over the dashboard and out along the pole, and swung herself down at the horses' heads.

"Now, if that ain't the meanest team you ever saw, tell me!" she drawled, as she wiped her face with her apron and looked contemptuously at the ponies. "To bust up the harness when there ain't a thing handy for me to mend it with! I suppose there ain't an inch of balin' wire in the wagon. You couldn't look, could you, girlie? I don't want to leave this fool pony."

"Here's something! I don't know whether it's baling wire," Harry said, after making a careful survey of the wagon box, "but there's a piece of wire round the whip socket."

"Sure thing, I'd forgot that. Lay the young one down and get it for me, will you?"

Harry obeyed, and Mrs. Robinson, cool and unconcerned, mended the bridle. Then she climbed into the wagon, started the horses, and took up the conversation as if it had never been broken off.

Ashamed to reveal her fear, Harry forced herself to listen and to talk; but when they drew near the ranch her thoughts rushed forward, and she could think only of Rob. The moment they stopped at the corral she was out of the wagon, and with an apology to Mrs. Robinson for leaving her to unharness alone, she hurried across the slope. Her brother lay as she had left him, with one arm up, shielding his face from the flies that swarmed in the hot, sunny tent. He was awake, but feverish and in pain. Bringing a basin of water, Harry began to change the bandages. While she was busy, Mrs. Robinson appeared, with the baby in her arms.

"How about feedin' the critters?" she asked, as she declared her sympathy. "The pigs ain't been slopped nor the chickens fed, I expect. I don't see the cow nowheres. Like's not she's feedin' up in one of them draws along the hills. 'Slong's you ain't milkin' her it don't matter. She'll get back when she's thirsty. Now, don't you move," she added, as Rob tried to rise. "I'll see to the whole outfit."

"I'd forgotten all about the critters!" muttered Rob. He tried to lift himself, and then, sinking back with a gasp of pain, closed his eyes. "I certainly feel mean."

"You mustn't think of moving," protested Harry. "Mrs. Robinson is here. She's looking after everything. She's been awfully kind; telephoned to the doctor, drove me home, and everything."

A look of relief crossed Rob's face. He smiled, and murmured, "That's great!" and suddenly Harry realized that under their neighbor's matter-of-fact manner there had been more genuine kindness and a greater willingness to help than she had appreciated.

Harry longed to drop down beside Rob and sleep; never had she been so weary. But she realized that Mrs. Robinson must be hungry, for it was almost eight o'clock. Harry had built the fire and was moving stiffly about, trying to think what she could prepare from her meager supply of groceries, when Mrs. Robinson returned.

"Say now," the woman exclaimed, "you let me get supper! You're wore to a feather edge. I'll knock up a pan of hot bread and fry a little fat meat, and that'll do us, bein' as there's no men to cook for."

After supper, Harry and Mrs. Robinson washed the dishes. The doctor had not yet come, and the girl was worried.

"Well," said Mrs. Robinson, "it's a twenty-mile drive out here, and it was close on to six when I called him. There, now! Hear that? I guess that's him this minute."

Both women hurried outside. The silhouette of a horseman showed against the sky, and a voice called, "This Holliday's?"

"That's right," replied Mrs. Robinson. "We're waitin' for you, Doc."

The next moment the doctor, a sallow-faced Kentuckian, swung from his saddle and clumped into the tent; he had turned up a wrong trail, he said, in apology for being late.

Harry held the lamp for him while he cleansed the wound and took a few stitches in it. He gave Harry directions for caring for it, and left lint and antiseptics. There was, he said, nothing more that he could do; fortunately all danger of concussion from the blow at the base of the skull had passed, and the other injuries were only flesh wounds. All Rob needed was to keep quiet for a few days. The sheriff, he explained, had not been able to come, because he had gone to Scalp Creek to investigate a shooting affair. While the doctor was getting ready to leave, Mrs. Robinson wrapped the baby in her shawl.

"If it's all the same to you, Doc," she said, "seein' as it's on your road, I'd be mighty obliged if you'd drive me over. The ponies are that mean to-night! You can hitch yours on behind the wagon."

Harry went down to the corral with them and stood in the moonlight holding the sleeping baby while Mrs. Robinson caught and harnessed the horses. Harry felt a generous impulse of admiration for the self-reliant, fearless ranchwoman, and when she said good night asked her cordially to come again.

"If she were only a little more civilized and congenial!" thought Harry regretfully, looking after them until they had vanished amid the moonlit ghosts of sagebrush, and the rattle of wheels had died away.

"I guess it would be better, though, if I were more like her," she suddenly confessed to herself. "Everything she does counts, while I just rush round and waste my breath. Of course she's learned how, while I have been learning civilized things; but if I'm to stay out here I'd better learn how to live here."

She took up her work the next morning with a fresh incentive and in a happy spirit. Caring for the animals was not such a bore as she thought it would be. She went first to the chickens and pigs; next she attended to the horses and heifers in the corral. The cow was nowhere in sight.

"I wonder when Jones will get back?" she thought. "Now that he might really be of some use, of course he's not here."

She finished her work, made Rob comfortable, and then went to walk over the ranch to see in which of the grassy coulees the cow had stayed to feed.

The hundred and sixty acres that the fence inclosed afforded plenty of range and good pasture, and there was no apparent reason why the cow should break out; but although Harry searched every gully and behind every rock ledge, she could not find her.

CHAPTER VI

It was several days before Rob was able to get about as usual. His head ached when he tried to walk and his muscles were stiff and sore.

On waking the morning after he was hurt, he asked whether Jones had come back again. He seemed a little troubled to learn that he had not yet returned. When the next two days passed without bringing Jones, Rob became plainly disturbed.

"He might at least send me word if anything has gone wrong," he declared.

"Perhaps he's gone after more colts," Harry suggested. "He's sold a good many of those he had here, hasn't he?"

"About half of them; but he wouldn't bring in more—not now, anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Oh, because. He simply wouldn't."

Harry kept silent, for she saw that Rob did not want to say any more about the matter. He seemed so greatly worried over Jones's absence that she restrained her impulse to tell him about Garnett and his sorrel horse.

On the third day Rob got up and announced that he was going to work.

"The first thing you know the cattle will be coming in round here to feed, and if I don't get that extra strand of wire round my fence before they get here, my critters will be up and off with the others."

Harry's heart thumped. "I might as well tell you, Bobs. The cow is gone already."

"Hey?" Rob turned quickly and stared at her. He looked pale and thin now that he was standing. "When did the cow get out?"

"I don't know—exactly. The day you got hurt, I guess."

"She may be in Boise by this time. Did the heifers go, too?"

"No, they are all here."

"Thank goodness! Well, I'll get right out after the other beast. I've heard Dan say a dry cow is a mean critter to keep tabs on. Put me up a lunch, will you, sis, while I'm saddling the pony?"

"Bobs! You aren't going to start out to-day? In this hot sun?"

"The longer I wait the hotter it'll get and the farther I'll have to ride."

"Couldn't you send one of the Robinson boys?"

"And pay him two dollars a day? They couldn't go, anyhow. The whole family is busy irrigating and plowing for fall wheat. Don't worry, sis; that scratch on my scalp looks worse than it feels. I may find the cow right down along the creek."

Rob went up the glen to the pasture to get his saddle horse. He was gone a long time and came back looking much troubled.

"I don't understand it" he said. "The gate is open up there and all the colts are gone. My pony, too."

"Rob—who could have done it? Do you think they were stolen?"

"I don't think so. There's been no horse stealing round here since that gang was rounded up last spring—just when you came, you remember? No, I can't imagine what's happened unless Boykin opened the gate for spite. Do you know when he went out?"

"The day after he attacked you. I heard the sheep crossing the meadow in the morning when I was getting fresh water for you."

"Wait until I find Joyce! If he thinks I'm going to put up with such work he's mistaken. I'll have to ride old Rock. What will Jones say when he finds those colts are gone? And how can we ever round 'em up again?"

"It isn't your fault. Why doesn't he come and take care of his own stock?"

"Something's happened, I suppose. He wouldn't stay off like this for nothing. I ought really to go after the colts instead of the cow."

Rob went down to the corral, and soon Harry saw him riding back, not on Rock, but on the sorrel with the ring-and-arrow brand.

"I'd forgotten we'd left this horse down in the corral," he said, looking much relieved. "Well, now I shan't be gone a week, as I expected to if I rode old Rock."

Harry started to speak and then changed her mind; there could be nothing wrong in Jones's secrets about the horses if Rob did not disapprove of them. Doubtless there were plenty of sorrels with the ring-and-arrow brand, and after keeping this one so long for Jones, there could be no harm in Rob's getting some service from it.

So, instead of telling Rob about Garnett, she said, "That's a pretty good pony, isn't it? About how old is he?"

Rob had just mounted. "About six or seven years, I should think," he said, as he rode off.

He was gone all day, but he found neither the horses nor his cow.

"I'll go out to-morrow," he said at supper, "and stay until I find some of these strays."

"You—you won't come back at night?"

"Probably not. Why?"

"Nothing—much. That is, I only thought you might be able to go to town in a day or two. We need several things."

Harry twisted her fingers together and tried to control her voice. To have Rob stay away—to leave her all alone! She stood silent, looking up at him. She must not let him see that she was afraid, for she had determined never to complain again.

Nevertheless, she waited almost breathlessly for him to answer.

"All right, then," he said, after a moment. "I'll come back to-morrow night, and we'll go to town the day after."

As soon as Rob had ridden off the next morning, Harry began to put the tent in order and to arrange for the journey to town. She prepared a luncheon for the trip, washed a pair of overalls for Rob, got out a clean flannel shirt for him, and sewed a button on his coat. She had by this time learned to regard overalls as "dress-up" garments.

In the afternoon she went out to irrigate the garden. While she was cultivating at one end, a ditch broke at the other and let the water rush down across half the rows. She had hard work repairing the damage, and was so busy that she lost all track of time. In fact, she did not realize that the sun had set until a long-drawn melancholy howl from the butte, answered suddenly by a chorus from the "scab" land, told her that the coyotes were out for the night.

"Probably Bobs went farther than he realized," she decided, when at nine o'clock she sat down alone to eat her supper.

At ten o'clock Rob had not yet come. What could be keeping him? Had the pony stumbled and thrown him? Could he have had a sunstroke? Suppose he had fainted out there alone—without water——

Resolutely Harry turned from such thoughts. He had probably lost his way and would get home very late. She would be foolish to sit up for him.

She undressed very slowly, listening, hoping to hear the sound of the pony's hoofs; but soon she grew too sleepy to listen for them.

When she awoke it was broad daylight; the clock had stopped and Rob had not come. She went to the doorway and looked all round. The same silence, the same blaze of sunlight, the same solitude. Was it really another day? In the unbroken quiet everything seemed at a standstill. She did the chores and worked in the garden; but all the time she listened. And Rob did not come.

The day passed, and another night. She slept fitfully. Several times she thought she heard the beat of hoofs, and trembling with hope, hurried out to look. When the third day passed without bringing Rob, Harry knew that something had happened to him.

She sat beside the table in the evening with her head in her hand. She wished that it were not too late to go over and talk with Mrs. Robinson. She felt the instinct to lay her troubles upon some one else. Then she bethought herself and crushed down the impulse. The Robinsons were all busy with the haying. She had no right to call upon them for help, and moreover, she would be ashamed to do it. She must help herself. She would drive the twenty miles to Soldier, and send some one out to look for her brother.

When her alarm clock rang the next morning she hopped resolutely out into the chilly dawn, dressed, and got her breakfast.

No one who is used to handling horses can understand Harry's feelings as she lifted the heavy set of harness from the peg beside Rock's stall and dragged it over his back. She had watched her brother often as he harnessed the team, and remembered something about the way he had done it; but it was mostly by luck that she got the various straps into their proper places. Her heart beat nervously as she led the horses out of the corral and backed them up before the wagon. Suppose they should run away? But Rock and Rye were a steady team, and stood serenely while Harry fastened the tugs. It was only half-past seven o'clock when she left the ranch, but she felt as if she had already done a day's work.

She drove slowly at first, afraid that something would go wrong with the harness or that the horses would run away; but after the first few miles her spirits rose above her worries, and by the time she reached the Robinsons' ranch she was enjoying every moment of the ride.

As she passed the house Vashti burst from the door and, waving a letter, ran toward her.

"You want me to post this?" Harry asked, as she pulled up the horses.

"Oh, no! It's for you," Vashti said, and thrust the envelope into Harry's hand. "Hank Miller fetched it out from Hailey yestiddy."

"It's from Rob!" exclaimed Harry, and laughed with relief. Then, as her eyes flew down the sheet, her face clouded. The note read:

Dear Harry. I'm in the jug at Hailey. It's about those horses of Jones's. Bring that paper he gave me. It's a bill of sale. I stuck it up behind the clock on the shelf, next to the coffee grinder. Come over with it as soon as you can. Get one of the R. boys to tend the stock while you're gone.

Rob.

"'Tain't bad news, is it?" Vashti's voice broke Harry's dismayed silence.

"What? O Vashti, I must go to Hailey this minute. Can one of the boys tend the stock while I'm gone? Thanks ever so much. Which is the shortest way to Hailey? I suppose I must go by way of Soldier?"

"No. Cross the river by the lower bridge and then strike for the pike about Willow Creek." Vashti pointed eastward. "You'd ought to make it before dark if you hustle."

"How far is it? I don't know the road at all."

"You don't! Say! You want to watch for the big pillar butte. It's on the right where the road splits to go over the mountains. And say! Keep to the east whenever you hit a fork. Where are you going?" she added, as Harry turned the team homeward.

"I've got to go back and get a paper Rob wants."

"Say!" Vashti called after her suddenly. "Let me go for you. I can ride over there on Geezer and back while you're gettin' turned round."

Without waiting for an answer the little girl ran to the corral, led out the pony, flung a saddle over his back, shoved the bridle over his ears, and came back to Harry on the run.

"Now, where's your paper?" Vashti asked. "You go on toward the bridge," she continued, when Harry had told her where to find the bill of sale. "I'll come across the scab land and meet you."

With envy and admiration and gratitude in her heart Harry watched the small figure in red calico speed away across the sagebrush.

"If I could only go like that!" she thought with a sigh. "Well, I guess I'm not too old to learn, and if Vashti will teach me, maybe I can teach her something she'd like to know."

She had scarcely five minutes to wait at the bridge before Vashti came up with the precious paper. "You'll have to jack them there plugs up some if you're goin' to make it," the little girl remarked. "Wait. I'll get you a willer."

Slipping off her horse, she went down the bank of the river. In a minute she returned with a long, stout willow wand. "'Tain't so good as a blacksnake, but it'll make 'em step along some."

"Thank you, Vashti. If I do get there, it will be entirely owing to you!" Harry's words made the small girl smile with pleasure.

"It's just as Bobs said," Harry confessed to herself. "They're as kind-hearted and friendly as can be when you once know them, and all the 'education' in the world isn't as valuable out here as what they know."

As she drove along she kept thinking about the Robinsons, and of her own life on the ranch, and of Rob's present trouble. She was so busy with her thoughts that she did not notice the road, which meandered across the prairies without even a tree or a butte for landmark. This end of the prairie had never been laid off in ranches; it was too rough and too much broken by waves of lava that had at one time poured down through the valley. For miles there was no sign of human existence, no fence, no house, no cattle. The girl did not realize that she ought to be observing all the details that, in the desert, take the place of the signposts of civilized regions. She had grown drowsy with the monotony of the ride, but as the time passed, she glanced at the sun. It was getting low, and the pillar butte had not yet come into view. Feeling sure that she would see it after the next turn, she urged the horses to a trot; then suddenly she drew a sharp breath of dismay. The road had dipped into a small meadow sunk among the buttes, and ended. Harry pulled up the team and stared. Before her lay a long wooden platform. Tent pegs still stood in the ground, which was littered with camp leavings and piles of refuse wool. It was a shearing floor. She had taken the wrong road.

She sat still a moment, wondering what she had better do. She had no idea how far past the right turn she had come. The best plan would be to feed and water the horses here and then turn back. She ate her bread and bacon and drank from the canvas bag slung beneath the wagon; she envied 'Thello, who had promptly laid himself down in the shallow stream that oozed from the meadow.

As she drove back, she watched ahead for the place where the road branched, unaware that, on her way into the hills, she had passed not one but two forks of the road.

By degrees the ridges that inclosed the flats drew nearer. Great chimneys of lava, pillars and obelisks of red granite and blocks of iron-stained quartz crowded the road, which curved and swerved amongst them. Sometimes she drove beneath a threatening stone bridge; sometimes the wagon squeezed between tilted stone slabs; sometimes it bumped over a sharp descent of ledges. The rocks ahead took on weird, fantastic shapes that made them look like the ruins of a fire-swept city—long streets of toppling houses, palaces, towers, dungeons—lighted by the flames of the westering sun.

So hideously real was it that Harry found herself listening for the uproar of cries that would have been part of an actual fire. The silence made it more horrible, and in that silence she began to be afraid. She stopped the horses and sat still. She was lost.

She did not know which way to turn; once astray in this labyrinth of rocks, she might never be able to find her way out. The horses, thirsty and tired, stood with drooping heads. 'Thello, who lay at the roadside softly panting, glanced inquiringly up at her.

"Yes," she said, as if answering his question, "I've got to get out of here somehow. It's absurd. I must get out."

Keeping her eyes on the road, she slowly backed the horses. The sun was setting, and on the hard, thin soil that covered the bed rock, wagon tracks were hard to see. Watching the faint trail fixedly, leaning forward and urging the team on, she wound in and out among the rocks, until gradually they became more scattered, and lost their fantastic shapes.

When at last Harry saw the open road, she felt that the worst was behind her; but, nevertheless, she pulled up and looked slowly about. She was not sure in which direction she ought to turn, and she dreaded the thought of going down the cañon alone in the dark. 'Thello pricked up his ears, stared ahead, and growled.

"What is it, boy?" Harry asked eagerly. "Run him out!" But the dog, growling softly, merely continued to listen.

With a sudden sharpening of her senses, Harry peered into the dusk. Perhaps some one who could help her was passing near by. She listened intently, with every nerve alert.

Suddenly she stood up in the wagon and screamed:

"Help! Help! Help!"

A clamor of echoes answered her ringing cries, and 'Thello challenged them furiously. The girl stood silent. As her voice struck back mockingly at her from barren butte and rock, she realized that she was helpless, and lonely, and afraid. Drawing a deep breath, she shut her hands tight. She would not give up to fear! Steadying her voice, she put all her strength into one more call:

"Help!"

"Coming!" A man's voice answered her.

The shout echoed her cry, a rattle of hoofs swept suddenly near, and Harry saw a horseman appear over the ridge. His figure rose and fell in silhouette as he galloped toward her. "It's Garnett!" Harry thought joyfully.

"Hello, what's doing?" he asked, as he pulled up. "Any one hurt? Who is it?"

"It's Harriet Holliday. I'm lost. I got over into those queer rocks and couldn't get out."

Garnett caught the quaver in her laugh. "Lucky I was riding through this way," he said. "That was the city of rocks you were in. How did you get out? Even fellows that know the country have got balled up in there and come pretty near cashing in before they struck the trail again."

Harry shivered. "I just made up my mind I had to get out, and kept my eyes on the wheel tracks until I found the open road again."

"You've got grit and sense, and you did well. Where are you heading for up here alone?"

"Hailey."

"Hailey! This time of night?" He dismounted and tied his horse to the back of the wagon; then he got into the seat beside her, took up the reins, and whistled to the team.

"Oh, will you really drive me?" Harry sighed in relief. Every tired muscle, every trembling nerve relaxed, and she leaned wearily back against the wagon seat.

"I started this morning," she explained. "I took the wrong turn somewhere. But this is the first time I've been out this way, and so it was easy to get lost."

"The first time! And you're alone!"

"Yes, my brother's in Hailey. That's why I'm going. He's in trouble. I don't know just what, but he sent for me to come."

Garnett made no answer, and they were both silent for some moments, while the team jogged on. Harry was wondering whether she ought to tell Garnett that Rob was in jail, when his voice made her start guiltily:

"Your brother been gone long?"

"Long? No; let's see. He started out after the cow—You didn't hear of her, did you?"

"Maybe it was yours some one was telling me about."

"I wonder whether it was ours? Perhaps Rob tried to take it and got into a squabble. And yet that isn't a bit like him."

"Was he afoot?" Garnett asked suddenly.

"Oh, no. On horseback. But it was a strange horse." She stopped.

"One of those you were telling me he was keeping?"

"Yes." In spite of herself her voice became self-conscious.

"Well, maybe some one thought it was his."

"Thought what?"

"Maybe that horse your brother was riding belonged to another fellow, and the other fellow pinched him for stealing it."

"What nonsense!" She laughed faintly.

"It's not nonsense to the fellow that thinks his critter was stolen," he replied.

"Of course not. I don't mean that, I mean the idea that my brother would steal a horse. You don't for a moment think he would, do you?"

"I don't pass judgment on people I don't know right well."

"But you know what sort of people we are. Do you think I would steal?"

"Maybe not."

Harry gasped. "You might as well say yes."

"If I saw you riding one of my horses, say, and I'd lost one, and you couldn't tell me where you'd got it, and wouldn't give it up, perhaps I'd think you stole it. Perhaps I'd run you into the jug until you could tell where you got it."

"And that's what you think has happened to Rob?"

"M-h'm!" he assented.

"What?" Harry's voice rang. She drew herself erect, and in the luminous darkness of the summer night the two in the seat of the jolting wagon stared at each other.

"Tell me," she demanded sharply, "tell me what you know—what you think!" And still staring at him, she waited for his reply.

"I know that your brother was riding my horse. I saw him on it."

CHAPTER VII

For a minute they jogged on in silence. Then, in a voice that was clear with scorn, Harry said:

"So you sent my brother to jail just for riding your miserable old horse!"

But although her voice was cold and hard, there was a note of fatigue and distress in it that Garnett was quick to understand. He flushed hotly, and a wave of sympathy for the girl swept over him. Those few indignant words of hers made him certain that she knew no more who the real horse thief was than he did himself. She was just what she had appeared that first time in the train—a sweet, gay, warm-hearted little girl, amusingly ignorant of everything Western!

"I reckon you think hanging's too good for me," he said. Harry did not answer, and in a moment he went on. "It's like this. My job is up in the reserve—keeping tabs on everything that goes on up there in the timber, where the sheep and cattle men take their herds in summer. You can see I wouldn't keep my job long if I was to believe everything fellows tell me about how honorable and noble-minded they are. I'm deputy sheriff, too—have to be in case of trouble, we're so far from town. I was running down one of those Bascoes when that pony of mine disappeared. I traced it out to the Boise base line,—this road we're on now—when I met a fellow that saw him traveling this way in a string of colts. I was on his trail when I struck your place. You see, I was kind of suspicious about that 'boarding' yarn, and yet I didn't see, honestly, how you could frame up a tale like that yourself."

"Why didn't you come back the next day and ask my brother about your horse?"

"That's what I meant to do; but I got word to go back to the reserve quick. The sheep were coming in, and I didn't have another chance to get down here until the day I met your brother hunting his cow. He had my horse, and I thought the best thing to do was to give him a chance to explain to Judge Raeburn. That's the way of it."

There was a long, strained silence. Garnett had never been so uncomfortable and unhappy in his life. Here he was, showing himself in the worst possible light to the nicest girl he had ever met.

The road, which was cut out of the side of the cliff, was steep and barely wide enough for the team. On one side was the frowning mountain wall, on the other the black abyss. Harry felt the horror of it; but when she looked up into the clear, serene sky she forgot her fear. She felt round her the splendor and immensity of the night and the wilderness, and her annoyances, her troubles and worries, slowly faded away. A delightful sense of rest came upon her. She realized how much she owed to Garnett for coming to her aid as he had done, and she was trying to think of something friendly to say to him, when he spoke.

"I hope you ain't a-cussing me still?" he said with gruff earnestness. "I'm sorry."

"No, indeed," Harry answered quickly. "You couldn't help it. But I wish Rob had never gone in with that fellow Jones—the one he's boarding the horses for. Sometimes I almost hate Jones. He's taken Rob away from me. I meant to have such a good time out here, but one thing after another has gone wrong. Part of it was my fault, I know."

And she told him the whole story of the affair with the sheep herder, how she had insisted upon keeping 'Thello and had refused to file on the homestead, of the herder's attacking Rob, and of the mysterious disappearance of the colts, and Rob's pony, and the cow.

"And if I'd done as Bobs wanted me to, all these troubles would never have happened."

"Oh, now, you mustn't talk that way. Nobody lives that ain't meeting up with something all along the trail. Might be you'll get you a homestead somewhere that you'll like a whole heap better than the one you lost."

"It isn't that. It's because Rob wanted us to have them together. The sheep couldn't have come in then; and now, since Joyce has filed on that place, his sheep will eat out all the grass and ruin the grazing for our cattle. So you see it is all my fault."

"I wouldn't say that, now. I might say it was mine, because I hadn't any business to lose my horse; but I ain't saying it. Things happen, that's all. And it's as likely to turn and happen right for you as it did the other way. We ain't ready to call this job off yet. Looks now as if your brother wasn't a horse thief, after all; and as he ain't, it looks up to me to get him out of the jug."

"I wish, when you have got him out, that you would put that sheep herder in. Running the horses off! As if he hadn't already done enough in beating Rob the way he did! I'd like to show that old Joyce, too, that he can't have all the grass, even if his herder has filed on the homestead next to ours."

"I reckon there wouldn't be much trouble running in the herder. The law's got a plain case against him—assault and trespass; but it's Joyce that ought to get jugged first."

"Joyce!"

"Sure. He's got fifty more homesteads than he has any right to."

"Yes, that's what Dan Brannan told us," Harry said slowly. "But no one can prove anything against him, and you could make his herder have some regard for our rights."

"I'll do that, anyhow. I'll hunt him out as soon as I get back to the range. What sort of a looking fellow is he?"

"Big and heavy-looking, yet rather handsome, in a way. Looks like a spoilt, sulky child.

"Not a Mex?"

"Oh, no. That's what makes it seem so much worse."

"Name Hunter?"

"No, Boykin."

"Boykin? Are you dead certain? There's one of Joyce's herder's that's this fellow's twin brother, if he ain't closer still—the meanest man that ever followed a bunch of woollies—but his name's Hunter. I've got him in the jug right now, too."

"Oh, if it only were Boykin!"

"I'll look him up," Garnett said. He was silent for a moment, and then he exclaimed:

"Say, I want you or your brother to take a look at that fellow Hunter to-morrow! It's got into my head that he and your man Boykin favor each other a whole lot more than they'd ought to."

"I don't see that it makes any difference how much alike they look," Harry said.

Garnett chuckled. "It might make a whole lot of difference to you."

"How?"

He was silent a moment. "If you'll excuse me ma'am, I reckon I'd better not say too much until you've had a peek at Hunter."

Harry did not urge him to explain, and when they began to talk again it was of other things. Harry told Garnett about her life back East, and about her comradeship with Rob in the old days: she told him, too, how disappointed Rob was because she did not like the West as he had hoped she would. She admitted that she had not tried very hard to like it.

As they drove on through the darkness they chatted freely, and exchanged the simple confidences that lay the foundation for a true friendship.

At last they left the cañon and rumbled over the hard, smooth road toward town. Little by little the lights of Hailey grew brighter, and at last the wagon drove under the big blue arc light on the edge of the town. It was Saturday night, and all the stores were open; the streets were crowded with people.

Garnett proposed that they should go first to the hotel and have some supper; but Harry was almost nervously eager to give Rob the paper she had brought to him, and so Garnett acquiesced.

"I reckon I'd better go along," he said. "It's after hours for visitors, but as deputy sheriff I can fix it up. And I'd like to see your brother myself. If he'll give me the straight story of this affair, I reckon I can straighten things out pretty quick."

Harry's heart beat unevenly as she followed Garnett up the steps of the jail and into the office. The dreary room, lighted by the glaring electric light, meant something indescribably mean and shameful to her. Her heart sank as she waited for Garnett to attend to certain necessary formalities. When Pedersen, the big Swede jailer, stared at her in smiling, stupid curiosity, she was thankful for the protection of Garnett's presence.

Garnett let Harry go to her brother's cell alone. As the door clicked, the light flashed up and flooded the narrow, whitewashed room. Rob turned from the window where he had been standing.

"Hello, sis!" he said listlessly. "Just get in?"

"Bobs, dear! You poor thing! Isn't this horrible?" She ran to him, slid her hand through his arm and kissed him.

"You look as if you had been ill!" she exclaimed, looking up at him anxiously.

"I do feel seedy." He passed a hand over his unshaven cheek and glanced down at his rumpled clothes. "Being shut up here without a change of clothes for several days is the limit. Did you bring that bill of sale?"

"Yes, here it is." She handed him the paper. Rob glanced at it, and then put it into his pocket. "If I'd only had that along the other day when that chump pinched me! Smarty! I'd like to have him fined for false arrest—putting me in here!"

"Why, Bobs! He didn't know you were all right. He'd never seen you before. He had to do it; but he's awfully sorry."

"He is? How do you know?"

"He told me so. He drove me over here. If it hadn't been for him, I'd probably be wandering round in the hills or lying at the bottom of that awful cañon on the edge of the road." She went on to tell him about her journey and her talk with Garnett. "He's outside now, Bob," she said, a little timidly, for Rob's face had darkened. "He wants to see you and have you tell him who Jones is and where he got those horses."

"I don't want to see him. And I've nothing to say about Jones."

"But, Bobs, if you don't tell how Jones came to have Garnett's horse, they'll simply hunt up Jones and make him tell. Won't you see Garnett? I've already convinced him that you were only boarding the colts for Jones, and Garnett's really our friend now, only of course he wants to clear this matter up. I wish you'd talk frankly with him, Rob, dear."

"I like that! Maybe he's forgotten I tried to explain things the day he ran me in."

"But you didn't tell him where Jones got his horse. He's going out to-morrow to hunt up Jones and bring him here to prove that those horses are his."

"But they're not. They're mine."

"Yours!" Harry cried, falling back a step.

"That's what this bill of sale is. I bought every one of those colts from Jones."

"But, Rob, where did Jones get Garnett's horse? He never sold it."

"Don't ask me. There comes Pedersen. You'll have to go now."

"And you won't see Garnett? Please, Rob! He's really our friend. Oh, yes, and another thing. I was telling him about that herder, Boykin, and he says my description of him exactly fits a herder of Joyce's named Hunter, who is in jail here. I think Garnett suspects that they are the same man, and he seems to think it may make a lot of difference to us. I don't quite see how, do you?"

Rob's expression changed. "It would make a lot of difference to me to know that Boykin was in the jug."

"Oh, it was some bigger difference than that. He didn't want to tell me about it until he was sure, but maybe he would tell you."

Rob laughed. "Aren't you ingenious, miss? Not till morning, anyway. Maybe I'll talk to him then, unless Raeburn gets home first. If I can only see the judge for five minutes, he'll probably dismiss the case against me without another word."

Garnett looked up eagerly when Harry entered the office. "He didn't want to see me?" he asked.

"He will in the morning." She blushed faintly, but still faced him with frank eyes.

"Well, let's go. You're all in. It's nearly midnight, do you know it? And you haven't had a square meal all day."

"I'm not a bit hungry, but I am sleepy, most horribly sleepy."

She yawned and laughed at the same time.

As they went out into the street, Harry drew a deep breath and lifted her face. How sweet the fresh air was! And to think of Rob's being shut up in that horrible prison!

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you," said Garnett, when they stopped at the foot of the hotel steps. "But I won't leave this game until it's played through."

He held out his hand to her, raised his hat and looked at her; in his steady blue eyes was an expression of sincere friendliness that put courage into Harry's heart.

The confidence which that assurance of good will inspired in her sent Harry to a dreamless sleep.

When she came down to breakfast the next morning, the hotel clerk handed her a note.

Miss Holliday,

Dear Friend, Am sorry not to drive you across the prairie to-day, but have gone to hunt up that Jones. Saw your brother early, and gave him a look at Hunter. He says it's the same herder that beat him up. Your brother ain't talking about Jones, but I'll camp on his trail until I find him, or what was him, and fetch him along back to straighten this business out. Resp.

Christopher Garnett.

The letter was like the warm handclasp he had given her last night. She hurried off to see Rob, hoping that now he would feel differently toward Garnett.

But Rob returned her cheery greeting without much enthusiasm. "Garnett's all right," he said, in answer to her eager question. "He admits he thinks I didn't steal his horse, but some one did, and Jones looks like a good one to put it on. I promised to keep Jones's affairs quiet until he gets ready to talk himself. If Garnett finds him, he may get what he can from him; that's no affair of mine. When I see Judge Raeburn, he'll put the whole business straight in five minutes."

"Well." Harry's voice was colorless, and she stared past Rob at the window. Then, with a quick change of manner, she turned to him. "In his note Garnett said that Boykin is Hunter. What will that mean, Rob?"

Rob's face lighted up. "If we can prove that he is, we can contest his filing on that land."

"O Rob! How perfectly splendid! But how soon can we find out?"

"When court opens. As soon as Boykin comes up for trial, Garnett will appear as a witness against him in this case of assault that he arrested him for."

"He attacked another man?"

"Yes, he got into a fight up on the way to the reserve; ran his sheep under the fence onto Rudy Batt's land, and when Rudy set his dogs on the sheep, Boykin, or Hunter, leaped on him with a stick, just as he did on me, and beat him up."

"Mercy! What a murderous creature! I'm glad some one arrested him at last."

"Yes, that's another thing I want to stay over here for: to appear against him in court. He may get six months in the pen."

"I hope he will. I wonder what he changed his name for? What a funny thing to do!"

"That's not so uncommon. A man often skips the country and changes his name when he's done something and is afraid of the law. Garnett says that Hunter was herding cattle for the same outfit he was with, and that he was always quarreling with some one. Then one night he pulled a gun on one of the boys, and lit out without waiting to see whether he'd killed him or not."

"Had he killed him?"

"No, lucky for him. But you see he had filed on a homestead out there, and so he's got no right to this one."

"Then we can surely get it."

"Not so sure. As soon as Joyce sees what's going to happen, he may jump in and put another man on there."

"O Bob! Could he? Would it be possible?"

"Why not? If he's slick enough to have done it so often, it won't bother him to do it once more. But there's time enough to think about that later. You must hit for home now, if you're to make it before dark. Let's see. You need groceries, don't you?"

"Yes. I forgot that to-day was Sunday."

"Well, see here. Go to the hotel and ask the clerk, Dougherty, to telephone down to his brother at the mercantile company store. Jack Dougherty is bookkeeper there, and he's usually down at the store early Sunday morning; he'll let you in to get what you want. When you get home, better round up the heifers every night to be sure they're all there. I may hear of the cow over this way."

Before Rob's calm, matter-of-fact attitude Harry's reluctance at going back to the ranch alone appeared childish. So she said good-by cheerily and started out.

The sun was high and the morning breeze dead when at last she left the poplar-shaded streets of the old mining town and struck the long road up the cañon to the top of the divide. She met only one person on the road, and that was Joyce. He was driving his motor car toward Hailey. When he came in sight the team began to prance nervously. Joyce got out and came up to them. He looked curiously at Harry, but did not recognize her until she spoke to thank him for quieting the horses.

"Say!" he exclaimed. "Ain't you the lady from Connecticut? Sure. What you doin' out here alone? Where's your brother at?"

"He had to stay in Hailey on business," she answered, smiling a little. Soon enough Joyce would know what the business was.

CHAPTER VIII

Harry did not come into view of the Robinson ranch until nine o'clock. It had been a long, hard drive from Hailey, and three miles yet lay between her and the homestead. Fortunately, it was not quite dark. Behind the mountains the after-glow still burned, dull orange and rose, and the tops of the buttes reflected a pale saffron gleam. But dark shadows filled the cañons, and objects near by had an odd trick of disappearing in the darkness just as Harry looked at them.

The ranch house lay dark and silent. Thinking that the family had gone to bed, Harry was going on without stopping. She was really too tired to stop and talk. As she came nearer, however, she saw a light in the kitchen; then the door opened and some one came down the path toward the gate.

"Hello there!" Robinson called. "That you, Holliday? Don't get down; I'll open the gate."

"It's I, Harry!" the girl answered. "I won't come in, thank you. But please tell Jimmy that he needn't ride over in the morning; I'll take care of the animals now."

"Say, you ain't alone, are you? Where's Rob at? Anything happened to him?" Robinson had swung back the gate and was peering at the girl perched on the wagon seat. "Vashti told us something was wrong."

"Yes. There's been some trouble over a horse Rob was boarding for a man, and he had to stay in Hailey." She broke off. How could she go into the story here, at this time of night?

"A hoss, eh? Well, them things do take quite some time to straighten up. But you can stop here with us until he gets home."

"Oh, thank you! Really, though, I guess I'd better go on. It's so late, and——"

"Sure thing. Too late for you to be chasin' back there alone to-night, ain't it, ma?"

"That's what." Mrs. Robinson, with her arms wrapped in her apron, had joined them, and stood listening while Harry told again what had happened to Rob. As the girl gazed down through the clear darkness the scent of the wild bean floated down to her from the hillsides. The hurrying patter of water in the irrigation ditches soothed her tired brain with the magic of a spell; her head nodded and her words became indistinct.

"Say, Johnny, she's droppin' in her tracks, she's so tired!" cried Mrs. Robinson. "Take them lines and hand her down 'fore she takes a header into the ditch."

Mrs. Robinson spoke in a tone of command, and "Johnny" obeyed. Yielding the lines with honest relief that she need go no farther that night, Harry climbed down and walked stiffly to the kitchen with her hostess.

The big, half-furnished room was neat and orderly from Saturday's scrubbing. Vashti, in her Sunday starched lawn frock and new scarlet hair ribbons, smiled bashfully. Mrs. Robinson, too, with "rats" in her hair and wearing a new purple gingham dress, seemed ten years younger. As she pulled forward a chair, Harry noticed that her right hand was swathed in a bandage.

"Yes, I burnt me, like a stupid," Mrs. Robinson explained. "Everything gets in a mill at once, seems like, and I burnt up a cake and busted a plate and put my hand out of business all at once. I got kind of behind Sat'day, havin' them extry hands to feed—we've got three here irrigatin' the alfalfy. We allus feed 'em good; it gives you a name outside, and you get the pick of hands when the rush of work brings 'em into the valley. Now, here's your tea warm; come and have a snack. It ain't much, but it'll hold you till morning, anyhow."

While she was talking, Mrs. Robinson had been setting out dishes at one end of the table. Harry sat down before a bewildering array of pickles, jelly, jam, cold meat, and hot fried "side meat," cake, pie, and some warmed-over vegetables from supper. If this was a "snack," Harry wondered what a "square meal" was. She was hungry from her day in the open air; but more compelling than her need of food was her need of sleep. Even while she drank her tea and tried to tell of her experiences on the trip to Hailey, her eyelids sank leadenly. Presently, in the middle of a sentence, she saw Mrs. Robinson smiling.

"You poor young one! You're that sleepy you don't know what you're sayin'. Vashti, run get some sheets and comfortables and we'll make up the davenport in the front room."

"It's good of you to keep me overnight when I know you have a houseful already," said Harry.

"Don't you worry. Nobody but comp'ny ever sleeps in the front room."

Mrs. Robinson led the way proudly into the room. Exhausted as Harry was, she knew what was expected of her, and managed to say something about the gorgeous carpet, the dazzling wall paper, and the vivid table cover.

The air in the room was lifeless, and as soon as Harry was alone she carefully drew aside the lace curtains and opened the window wide. Then, after taking a long breath of the fragrant night air, she undressed and dropped into bed. For a second she was conscious of sweet comfort; she gave a great sigh of content—and knew no more until she opened her eyes to the dawn and heard the clatter of stove lids in the kitchen.

"Well! You up?" exclaimed Mrs. Robinson in surprise, when Harry walked into the kitchen. "You could ha' laid another hour yet; breakfast ain't till six."

"I hoped you'd let me help. How is your hand this morning?"

"It hurts still, but I don't know what more I can do; it's covered good with flour and lard."

"If you would try it, I have some salve over in the tent. It's really wonderful stuff. Mother made me bring a big jar of it. I'll bring it over this afternoon."

"Land sakes, girlie, go all that distance just to fetch me some salve? Not much! There ain't no need of you goin' over to your place nohow. Jimmy can easy ride over and feed until your brother gets back."

But Harry was firm. She not only thought it her duty to stay on the homestead, but she felt a sort of pride in staying there alone. Her solitary drive, her adventure in the city of rocks, had waked a new spirit within her, and that spirit was struggling to express itself. She was, however, quite unconscious of that.

"Please let me cook breakfast," she said suddenly. "I'm sure I can if you'll just tell me how you have things. I can fry the potatoes and make good coffee, anyhow."

"Well, I b'lieve I will let you. 'Tain't real good manners to set your comp'ny to work, but you'll excuse me this once, I guess. I couldn't even dress the baby this morning—had to leave that to Vashti. Say," she added, "you couldn't stay a week and cook for me while these boys are here, could you?"

Harry grew rather pink and stammered a polite refusal.

"Well," said Mrs. Robinson, "I know you ain't used to this kind of work, but any one can see you're smart. You'd get the hang of things in half a day."

"I'd stay in a minute," Harry assured her, "just because you were so kind to us when Rob got hurt. But you know how it is, with all these cattle round, and ours just new to the place. If they should get out, they might get way across the river before Rob comes home."

"Yes, that's right. And you two have got to work together if you're goin' to make anything of homesteadin'. Pity you didn't take up a claim of your own while you were at it. A girl that's got a hundred and sixty in her own name is as independent as anyone."

"Yes, I'm sorry I didn't; but there's plenty to do, even on Rob's land."

"Ain't that the truth! Just wait until you get a crop in, though, and are lookin' for harvest hands—"

"We shan't have that trouble for a year or two, anyhow. Rob expects to go out to work, haying and harvesting for other people, and I suppose I shall stay at home and look after things."

"Say! Why couldn't you come over and help me at haying and harvesting? I'd pay you five a week and your board, and it'd keep the traces stiff here. Seems like the wagon is allus on my heels, as you might say, in the rush season."

"I'll come if I can," Harry promised.

She turned out the crisp, brown potatoes, poured the gravy into a bowl, and set the coffee back while she fried the eggs. Mrs. Robinson went out to pull the bell rope. The big iron bell hanging from the gable clanged its call, and a shout answered from the corral.

While Mrs. Robinson was overseeing the morning ablutions of the smaller children, who had come tumbling into the room at the sound of the bell, Harry went to the door to get a breath of fresh air after the heat and smoke of the kitchen.

The sun was just rising over the end of the foothills, and its rays shot up into the blue sky like altar flames; its red-gold beams made the trunks of the quaking asps up the cañon look like the pillars of a church. Unseen among the leaves a robin was chanting, rapt and blissful as a cloistered saint. That solitary voice of joy seemed all at once the voice of the morning—of the desert morning—monotonous, yet thrillingly significant to one who could see what the desert might mean. For an instant the girl's spirit flamed up in the knowledge of things yet to come. Then Mrs. Robinson called her, and she heard once more in the room behind her the homely clatter of the household assembling to breakfast.

"Them men folks comin'?" Mrs. Robinson called. "It's on the tap of six now."

As she looked at the clock, she filled the oatmeal bowls and ordered the children to their places at the table. Mrs. Robinson prided herself on serving her meals piping hot, without keeping the men waiting. While the men were coming in, the ranchwoman quickly filled the cups from the big blue enamel coffeepot, and set platters of eggs, plates of hot biscuits, and dishes of bacon at intervals on the table. Wondering and admiring, Harry watched her.

Mrs. Robinson motioned the girl to a place distinguished by a clean napkin, and at the same time introduced her to the young men.

"Let me make you acquainted with Miss Holliday; boys. This here's Pete Mosher, and Con Gardner, and Lance Fitch—Miss Harriet Holliday. She and her brother have homesteaded just east of here."

The young men bowed and murmured, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

Mrs. Robinson herself did not come to the table, but standing near by with her hands on her hips, watched to see that every one had all he wanted. Harry felt she had learned more this morning about how to do a great deal rapidly and efficiently than a month of solitary struggle on the homestead would have taught her. It made her feel as if she must get back there as soon as possible and "do things."

Mr. Robinson was telling the men about Rob's trouble with the sheep herder; all of them, it seemed, had had trouble with Joyce's men.

"Joyce is the meanest of all the sheepmen who come through here," said Lance Fitch. "Never gives a homesteader a bit of mutton, and grabs every blade of grass in sight."

"That's how he got so rich," remarked Pete Mosher; "by hoggin' the pasture and stealin' homesteads. I bet he's never hired a herder that he didn't make at least one homestead off him."

"Can't something be done to stop him?" asked Harry. "Couldn't some one go and ask him for a job herding, and then, when Joyce tried to get him to file on a homestead, have him arrested and prove him guilty?"

"Say, you catch Joyce and we'll send you to the legislature," promised Robinson, with a laugh.

Harry stayed long enough to help wash the dishes; then, in spite of the family's vigorous remonstrances, she drove over to the ranch. The heat of the day came on before she reached home, and she was glad that she had started early. Although there was not a great deal for her to do on the homestead, she did not finish her various tasks until noon. Hot and hungry, she went up to the tent to get herself some luncheon and to look for the jar of salve. She had just started to build a fire when she heard a horse's tread outside, and thinking that it was Rob, flew to the doorway. But it was a stranger that faced her—a big man, with keen, friendly eyes and a low, drawling voice.

"Robert Holliday live here?" he asked.

"Yes," Harry answered, "this is his homestead, but he's not here now. I'm his sister. Is there any message you wish to leave?"

"Pleased to meet you; Miss Holliday. I'm the sheriff of Lincoln County—Mason is my name. I've got a bunch of horses down in Shoshone that I understand Mr. Holliday can tell me something about. Do you know when he'll be home?"

"No, I don't. To tell you the truth, he's over in Hailey now, in jail, on a false charge of having stolen one of those horses."

"A false charge?" The sheriff looked at her searchingly.

"Yes." Harry colored under his keen inspection. "Chris Garnett, the deputy sheriff for this county, found my brother riding a horse that Garnett claimed as his. As Rob refused to tell him where he got it, Garnett took him to jail. But he admits now that he doesn't think Rob stole his horse. Rob could come home if he wanted to, but he's waiting over there to see Judge Raeburn and explain the whole matter to him."

"H'm! Well, maybe you can tell me where your brother got that horse."

"No, I can't. It was in the bunch of colts that a fellow named Jones brought in here, but I don't know where they came from."

"What were they doing here?"

"The colts? Why, Jones and Rob had some sort of a partnership in them. They broke them together, and Jones drove them out and sold them, I guess, for he had taken more than half of them when he disappeared about a week ago. We haven't any idea where he went, or whether he came up and took the rest of the horses without telling Rob."

"I see. And Garnett? Where's he at?"

"Gone to find Jones and see what he can get out of him."

Mason laughed. "Well, I'll be going on. You say your brother is staying over in Hailey to talk things over with Judge Raeburn? Court opens in Hailey to-day; so your brother ought to get back here to-morrow. I'm on my way to Soldier and I'll stop over here on my way back—in a couple of days or so."

"I wonder if you'll do me a favor?" Harry exclaimed, as Mason turned his horse. "Will you leave a little package at the Robinsons' for me? It's some salve for Mrs. Robinson's hand."

"Sure I will. I haven't seen the family for quite some time."

"What a stupid I am!" Harry exclaimed, as she watched the man ride away in the distance. "I didn't remember to ask him where Jones was, or where he found the colts, or anything. I wonder whether anything can be wrong—whether he arrested Jones?"

She turned away. A swarm of new, strange fears had suddenly sprung to life to torment her.

CHAPTER IX

Standing in the door of the tent, Harry stared out over the desert where the Sheriff had disappeared.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "It seems that out here in the desert you have to know more and think quicker and be generally all-around smarter to be good for anything than you do back East, where every one is supposed to know everything that's worth while."

All during the afternoon, no matter what she happened to be doing, her thoughts returned to that curious and not very flattering conclusion. She recalled to mind the different people she had met in the short time she had been in Idaho. They had all been "onto their job," as they would have said. Even when they were not naturally qualified for their work, they were self-reliant and resourceful.

Harry's great desire now was to find a way to help Rob. She looked round the vast expanse of untilled acres; neither her hand nor her brain was yet capable of attacking that work. She turned and surveyed the inside of the tent, and the spirit of all her New England ancestors rose up in protest within her. Gazing helplessly at the dishes of half-eaten food, the piles of canned goods, the eggs and butter heaped under the table because there was no other place for them, she saw in her mind her New England home, with its cellars, cupboards, storerooms, and pantries. Of all the housekeeping necessities for which this chaotic tent cried to her, it cried loudest for a pantry. Who could keep house without a pantry?

What, she wondered, had Mrs. Robinson done for a pantry when she had started housekeeping in her one-room "shack"? Harry's thoughts shifted to the ranch house, and the Robinsons' cheerful slapdash way of doing the day's work. She remembered helping Vashti bring in the butter and milk from the side-hill cellar.

A cellar! Laughing, Harry ran down to the garden. She came back with the shovel and grub hoe, and went on to the stream where the bank rose steeply on the other side into the slope of the hill.

At first her enthusiasm made the work seem easy. It was fun to drag the stones from the bank, to tear out roots and bushes, and gradually to see a cave shape itself. Of course it would be only a miniature cave, just large enough to hold a wooden packing box on end; but she could keep there butter and eggs and milk, and perhaps a few dishes.

Before she realized it the sun was low, the pigs were squealing for their supper, and her hands were badly blistered.

Well along in the afternoon of the next day, Harry was still digging bravely at her cellar. It was not enthusiasm now, but determination, that kept her at her task. She stood in the water and chopped doggedly at the roots. Sometimes she stopped to wipe her hot face on her sleeve, or to give her hair another twist.

"About a dozen shovelfuls," she said suddenly aloud, "and it will be finished."

"What'll be finished?"

"Oh!" With a cry Harry whirled round and faced Rob, who stood on the opposite bank grinning with amusement at the muddy, disheveled young person before him.

"Rob! You mean thing! How you scared me! When did you come? I didn't hear you."

"No wonder, making such a racket yourself. What's that? A playhouse?"

"A playhouse! That's a cellar." She dropped her work and walked back to the tent with him. "Well, it's good to see you. What has happened? What did Raeburn say?"

"Oh, not much. Gave me some good advice."

"What about Jones? Oh, yes, I forgot. The sheriff was here from Shoshone. He stopped here to ask you about those colts. He has them down in town."

"Yes, I know. I saw them last night."

"Well, then, you know more than I do."

"I know you've thought I was pretty mean, sis," Rob said, after a moment's silence, "not to tell you all about this business at the start. It wasn't because I didn't trust you; it was simply to save you from having to answer questions that you couldn't have answered honestly without giving everything away. But now it's all settled and you can know what we've been doing.

"First, I suppose you'd like to know who Jones is. I met him winter before last when we were both working on the new railway out of Shoshone. Jones had taken a subcontract under Grant, the man who had the whole job from the company, and from the start everything was against him: he struck rock, lost a team, and was laid up sick for a couple of weeks. He just lost out all around.

"Well, when he came to quit he hadn't a cent and was about five hundred dollars in debt besides. Grant got out a judgment against him for supplies, and there Jones was, with his whole winter's work shot to nothing.

"He worked at odd jobs during the summer. Then when he heard of that government ditch up in the northern part of the state, he hiked up there. He worked there all winter, got good pay, and saved some money. He'd written to me, off and on, and I saw he was worried about that money he owed. He wanted to pay it, but if he came back and paid up everything, he'd be cleaned out. If he could only invest it and make a little profit on it, he could pay his debts just the same and have a little left over to start on. He'd had such hard luck and worried so hard it seemed only fair.

"I happened to think of bringing horses in to sell. A work team fetches a good price down round Jerome and Twin Falls, where the new settlers are coming in. So we went into partnership on a bunch of horses. Jones went across into Oregon and got some colts cheap and brought 'em down here."

"But why did you have to keep it a secret?"

"Why, because, if his creditors had found out that he had a bunch of horses, they'd have attached the whole lot of them and sold them in auction for whatever they could get."

"But if he had sold them to you——"

"Yes, that's exactly why he did sell them to me; 'consideration one dollar.' Of course, he and I understood that they were really his, but legally they were mine, and no one could take them from me to settle his debts; but to be on the safe side we kept the colts up in the draw and worked with them only in the early morning and late afternoon, when there wasn't much danger of cattle men coming through. Well, everything was going fine, until one day when Jones was off looking up business he met a fellow he'd known on the railway that winter. Of course the fellow wanted to know how Jones was doing. Jones forgot himself and told more than he meant to. The other fellow was on his way to Shoshone then, and he said more than he should have. Grant heard about it, and by the time Jones had got back from Jerome, Grant had sent the sheriff after the horses."

"But why didn't Mason come down to see you?" exclaimed Harry. "What a strange thing to do—come and drive the horses off your land without a word!"

"But he didn't know that they were mine, or that they were on my land."

"Well, how did they know where to find them? Jones didn't tell that fellow exactly where they were, did he?"

"Of course not. It was through Joyce they found out. He was in town, at Mason's office, when Grant came in to send the sheriff after the colts, and Joyce remembered seeing them up there in the draw near the big quaking asp. Every one knows that tree, so it was easy for Mason to find the horses. It was dusk when he got there, and so I don't suppose he even thought of looking round to see whether any one lived down below in the cañon."

"Well, anyhow, if they're yours legally, why can't you go down and prevent Grant from selling them?"

"I thought of that. But Jones said not to—I talked with him on the telephone last night. We've sold half the bunch already, and the market is as good now as it ever will be, and rather than have any mix-up he thinks it's better to let Grant sell off the rest as quick as he can. We've made a good profit already, and so long as Jones is satisfied, I am. I got him into the scheme, so I felt that I had to stand by him to the finish."

"You certainly did!" exclaimed Harry. "It isn't every one who would go to jail for a man who is almost a stranger. Lose all that time and gain nothing by it!"

"Didn't I gain anything?" Rob looked at her oddly. "Didn't we, rather?"

"Didn't we?" she repeated, puzzled.

"Sure. Wasn't it by coming over to bring me that bill that you found out all about Boykin Hunter and the chance to contest his filing?"

"Sure enough. I'd forgotten. How did his case come out? Did he get the six months he deserved?"

"Not yet. Joyce was there, and he made a big powpow; said he could bring witnesses to prove that Boykin was a noble character, that he wouldn't hurt a fly, and so on. Asked for a stay until next court. Garnett says that's to give him time to chase round and find another man to put on that land. He's going to keep an eye on him,—Garnett on Joyce, I mean,—and if anything suspicious seems to be brewing, he'll chase down here and warn us."

"That's nice of him, isn't it? You aren't mad at him any longer?"

"At Garnett? Of course not. I was sore at him for being so bull-headed about his horse; but of course he was right to hang on to his suspicions until they were proved wrong. He was there this morning in court. He saw Mason last night, too, and learned the whole story about this horse deal. Yes, Garnett's a good fellow. It's fellows like him and old Dan Brannan that show a fellow what the West really is—the place where the man himself counts every time."

He got up and stretched himself. "I think I'll drive over to Soldier to-morrow and get a load of lumber. It's too dry to plow, and it won't be long before I'll be going haying and harvesting. If I get the lumber in now, we'll be ready to start building the house early in September."

"Where shall we put the house? I wish we could have it farther up the glen, near the trees."

"Let's go look round," suggested Rob.

As they walked up the slope, Harry said suddenly, "Oh, yes, I've meant to ask you a dozen times: how did Garnett's horse happen to be in that bunch of colts? I never told you how Garnett came here one day to look for his horse." She went on to relate what had happened, and why she had always put off telling him of it.

"Isn't that queer, the way a little incident can twist everything!" Rob exclaimed. "If I'd known that, I'd probably never have ridden the horse; never have got pinched anyhow, for refusing to tell where he came from. The way Jones happened to have him was this: You remember Garnett said he'd lost him? Well, a half-breed up in the reserve had stolen him, along with another, and was on his way to Boise when he met Jones coming this way, and got him to give him a colt in exchange for the two saddle horses."

"Goodness me! What a tangle, and yet how simple when once you know what caused it all! And where is Jones now? They didn't keep him a prisoner in Shoshone——"

"Oh, no, he's at liberty, but he had to stay and see how the matter was coming out. He said that after he pays his debts he's going into Oregon again to buy more colts."

They had been walking up the slope at a leisurely gait, and had just stopped beside a big rock to look round when the thud! thud! of a horse's hoofs came up from the trail, and they saw a buggy and team approaching. Rob shouted, and as the answering call came back, Harry giggled excitedly.

"It's Garnett! I'd know that voice anywhere."

They ran down to meet him, and reached the tent just as he climbed out of the dust-covered buggy.

"Hello, young fellow! What's the complaint now?" asked Rob. "I speak for one night's sleep before you drag me to jail again."

"Oh, don't worry," Garnett replied calmly. "It ain't you I'm after this time; it's your sister."

"Me!" Harry exclaimed. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Oh, say now! You're easy, ain't you?" Garnett apologized, with mischief gleaming in his eyes. "I didn't tell Bob the whole story, but didn't he tell you that I promised to come after you any time to go and file a contest on that homestead you're wanting?"

"What do you know about that!" Rob exclaimed in delight. "Has Boykin admitted he is Hunter, after all, or what?"

"No, it's Joyce that's given himself away; given the whole thing into my hand the way you'd shove a bottle at a baby."

"Oh, how?" Harry cried.

"It was yesterday, down at the livery stable in Soldier," began Garnett, as they all sat down on the grass. "I was in the stall way at the end of the shed fixing up my horse, and Joyce and another fellow came in along the alley beside me. Joyce never dreamed any one was listening, and he gave the whole thing up. He's going away to-morrow morning to show this new herder the land he's to make entry on, and then they're going to hike back to Shoshone in his automobile and file a contest over Boykin's filing."

"To-morrow!" repeated Rob.

"You're guessing. That gives us to-night to get ready; we'll make one first-class early start for Shoshone in the morning."

"To-morrow!"

"Say," said Garnett, turning to Rob, who sat as if he were dreaming, "don't use so many words. It sort of confuses me."

"You think we can do it?" asked Rob. It seemed too good to be true, and he was afraid that he should show his feeling.

"Can we! Well, I guess we can! You wait until you get in the rig behind that team of cayuses. You'll do it, hands down."

Rob looked at Garnett. He did not speak, but in his mute, eloquent gaze Garnett saw that what he had wished for had at last come to pass: Holliday was ready to be his friend!

"Isn't it queer," Harry said, after a moment's silence, "the way some people can take other people's mistakes and blunders and turn them into other people's good fortune!"

"Ain't you got an awful lot of folks mixed up in that?" asked Garnett.

"Not so many as you might guess, if you wanted to," said Harry, laughing, as she rose and went inside to her work.

Supper was a merry meal. Rob and Garnett laughed and talked and joked freely. Harry did not say much, but the sparkle in her eyes showed that she was very happy.

"And now, Harry, how early in the morning can you be ready to start for Shoshone?" asked Rob, as he and Garnett prepared to leave the tent for their beds in the hay. "I don't mean ready to begin to get ready; I mean ready to hit the trail."

"Oh, I can start now, if you say so," returned Harry, with a smile.

"Say. Let's take a ten-minute nap first," Garnett pleaded. "I feel like I was a living moving-picture show these days—I keep moving so much up and down the big road."

"Shall we make it eight o'clock in the morning, then?" said Rob. "By the way, Garnett, how are we going? We can't all three squeeze into that buggy."

"We could, but there's no use of it. You'll take the team and I'll ride your horse."

"You can't. He's down in Shoshone in that bunch of colts."

"Shucks! Well, I'll go as far as Robinson's with you and borrow a horse. Then I'll ride in ahead and meet you there. No use of me milling round in the dust behind you for thirty miles."

"I wish there were a short cut to town," said Harry to Rob, as they climbed out of Spring Creek cañon the following morning and started across the flats. Garnett had borrowed a horse at the Robinsons' and had ridden on ahead. "If Joyce sees us on the road, won't he suspect where we're going?"

"Why should he? He hasn't the faintest idea that we know his plans."

"But he knows that we wanted that homestead, and that we know Boykin is under suspicion of being some one else. If he hadn't been afraid, I don't believe he'd have rushed off like this to put a new man on the land."

"No, I don't suppose he would. Still, I'm not worrying. Even if he knew everything, he's got to go up on the land before he comes through by the road, and he's got to go slow a lot of the way. A buzz wagon is all right on a boulevard, but in a race like this give me a good team and a light rig and I'll lay my money on that."

As they drove along they laughed and talked, picturing Joyce's disgust at finding himself beaten, and feeling, in truth, as if they had already run and won the race. It was not until Rob looked at his watch and found that it was half-past twelve o'clock that they realized how much still lay between them and victory.

"I guess we'd better not stop at the Hyslop ranch for lunch," he said. "I'll let the horses drink, but we won't feed them. They would have to rest an hour if I did, and we've got to take the next fifteen miles on the run."

"Yes, yes," Harry agreed earnestly. "We mustn't stop for anything. We can't lose that homestead, Bobs, we can't."

Leaning forward, with her hands clasped tensely, she watched one after another the landmarks that Rob had pointed out to her on their first ride across the hills. How different she felt now!

They stopped to water the horses and to give them a few minutes' rest; then they pushed on again. Always listening and looking back, they kept the horses up to their work, and at the same time saved them for the last spurt.

"We're doing about eight miles an hour now," Rob said some time later. "We've about an hour and a half before the land office closes, and we ought to be able to do the rest of the trip in that time. That is, unless Joyce gets in and does it quicker."

He had hardly spoken when they heard behind them the faint blare of a horn.

"There he is now!" They said it in one breath, and their eyes met.

Rob slid forward in his seat. "We'll do it or bust."

"How can we?" asked Harry despairingly.

"I don't know. But I'm not going to give up now, would you?"

"Oh, no, no! Let's keep going to the very last. Something may happen for us."

Although the horses did their best, the motor car gained on them rapidly. Knowing that the car could pass them even if he held the middle of the road, Rob drew to the roadside. As the lumbering automobile went swiftly by it lunged down into a mudhole and spattered them freely.

"Thanks," said Rob placidly as Joyce glanced back over his shoulder. "That's one we owe you. Never mind, sis. You want to hold on, for wherever there's a stretch of good road I'll hit up the pace."

"Yes, that's right. He might break down or strike a snag at the last moment."

"Snakes and siwash!" Rob cried a few moments later. "He's done it! He's stuck!"

"O Bobs," Harry cried, giggling hysterically, "please be careful! The horses might run away."

"O my, O my, O my great-grandmother!" Rob shouted with delight as he pointed ahead.

They could now see the whole of the road between them and town. It wound downhill through the sagebrush, and then crossed the main ditch of the irrigation company; from there it ran in a straight line between the fenced fields until it entered the town.

About a mile ahead, just after crossing the bridge, the automobile stood motionless. The three men had climbed out, and were moving distractedly about it. Apparently their efforts to start it were proving futile.

"What did I tell you?" chuckled Rob. "He's struck a mudhole and bogged down. Look! There's a big break in the ditch somewhere above and the road is flooded a foot deep. Get up, you Derby winners, get up!"

CHAPTER X

As Rob and Harry drew near the disabled automobile, Joyce stepped out into the muddy road and hailed them.

"You couldn't stop long enough to hitch on here and haul us out, could you, Mr. Holliday?" he asked ingratiatingly, as Rob stopped. "We can't get her started neither way. It's kind of mean to ask a fellow to onhitch, but there's accidents happen to all of us, ain't there?"

Rob glanced at the car. Its front wheels were stuck fast in the mudhole; moreover, the bank of the slough was so soft and deep that Joyce could not get power enough into the wheels to force the machine either forward or backward. Rob watched him twice crank the engine and throw open the lever. The car shook violently, but refused to move. It was safe where it was for some time.

"You ought to get a couple of heavy rails or fence-posts to pry up the front wheels and run her across."

"That's all right, but I don't see any lying round here, do you?" Joyce snapped angrily. Then he added in a more pleasant tone, "I'll make it worth your while to put your team in here. I've got business in town that can't wait."

"I'm sorry; so have I," answered Rob.

"Wouldn't twenty-five make it up to you? Here it is." Joyce pulled the gold pieces from his pocket.

Rob shook his head. "Business first, pleasure afterward," he said, as the team started ahead. "I'm late as it is. You can get a couple of planks over at the ranch yonder."

A little way down the road Rob glanced back. "Now for the last lap," he said. "If that motor will only be kind enough to sulk for half an hour longer, I think we can just about beat him, her or it by a neck. Hurray!"

"He hasn't started yet," Harry announced from time to time, looking back to see what progress their rival was making. "Why can't he stick where he is until we get there? The moment he manages to get his machine out of the mud he'll simply open everything and rush past us, and we'll not be in the race at all."

"Not much. He'd bust the whole machine wide open if he struck one of these sharp rocks going fast. No, he'll wait until he gets pretty near town, where the roads are smooth, before he hits her up to top speed. So here is where we whirl in and do our level best."

Rob merely touched one of the ponies with the whip, and it was enough. Both ponies started on a run.

"O Rob! They're running away!" gasped Harry.

"Don't worry. I'd hate to see them drop, but I'm going to get there first, or bust. Where's Joyce now?"

Harry turned and knelt on the seat of the swaying buggy. "I don't see him. Yes, there he is! He's started! O Bobs! If we could only go faster!"

Rob did not answer. All his attention was on the team. How they could run! With ears back and tails stretched out, they dashed on; behind them swung the buggy, bounding over mudholes and across stones and ruts. Faster and faster the ponies flew.

Not daring to look back, Harry clung to the seat with both hands. Behind them came the continual blare of the horn as the motor car crept up on them, drew nearer and nearer, until, as they scrambled up the last hill, the mad clatter of the engine seemed almost in their ears. At the top of the slope, with the main street stretching before them, Rob showed no mercy. With the reins wrapped round his hands, he sat forward on the edge of the seat and urged the horses on.

Down the main street they went, missing a wagon, swerving past men who ran out to stop the runaway team, and who then, seeing the motor car behind, understood, and shouted applause. In a moment the quiet street was in an uproar of excitement. Shopkeepers and customers, corner idlers and school children, old men and women, ran pell-mell after the galloping team and the motor car.

Of three men on horseback who joined in the chase, one was Garnett. He had reached town about an hour before, but had not wished to put up his horse until Harry and Rob should come in. As soon as he saw them flying down the street, he rode up, and, by keeping close to the side of the buggy, helped to block the way to those behind.

As Rob pulled over to the side of the street toward the land office, Garnett shouted to Harry, "Jump for the door! Jump!"

Quick as thought, he reached down from his saddle, caught the girl round the waist as she leaned forward, and swung her from the buggy. He swung himself after her, and sprang up the steps to the office door just time to get between Harry and the sheepman, who reached for the doorknob at the same moment. But instead of all three piling into the room together, they merely fell against the door. For the door was locked.

Trembling with exhaustion and excitement, Harry felt her hand slip as Joyce tried to push her out of the way.

"No, you don't, Joyce!" Garnett said roughly, thrusting his arm in front of the sheepman. "You didn't get here first."

"This is a put-up job!" began Joyce angrily.

"I bet!" was Garnett's grim answer, which brought a laugh from the crowd that had gathered about the steps to see what would happen.

"Let me into this office!" Joyce ordered.

"The clerk didn't leave the key with me."

"This isn't your affair. Get away from that door!"

"Get away yourself."

"Perhaps I had better go," Harry said in a low tone to Garnett. "I can come back in the morning."

"Not early enough to get what you're after," said Garnett, glancing down at her. "You can hang on a while, can't you, until Rob gets back? He's gone to find out about opening this place. You don't want to have to stand here all night."

"All night?"

She turned a dismayed face on him. Garnett gazed into it a moment without answering. Never had he seen any girl look as Harry looked now. She was spattered with mud from hair to shoes. She had lost both hat and hairpins on that wild drive, and her brown curls lay in disorder about her neck. Her cheeks were white; even her lips were pale with excitement and weariness. But in her eyes shone the exultation of victory and on her lips was a smile.

"I can stand here a week if I have to," she said. "But I hope I shan't have to."

"You've got to get into this place first if you want that homestead. Here comes Rob now. Perhaps he's corralled the clerk."

Rob elbowed his way through the crowd that was pressing up to stare at Harry. "No use," he said. "The office won't be opened until nine o'clock to-morrow morning. I saw the clerk just as he was leaving town to go to a wedding, and wild horses couldn't have held him. Are you onto your job, sis?"

"I guess so. Listen. What is he saying?"

Joyce had retreated to the sidewalk. He was not afraid of a fight or unused to one, but for various reasons he hesitated to try to get possession of the door by force.

The jokes of the crowd were becoming more and more irritating to him, however, and suddenly he called out, "I'll give twenty-five dollars to any one who'll break that girl's hold on the door there!"

"And I'll give fifty swift kicks to any one who tries it!" cried Garnett.

"Wouldn't the young lady like a chair?" a voice said at Harry's elbow.

Turning, Harry saw Smoot, the hotel clerk, leaning over the railing of the porch with a chair in his hand.

"That's good of you!" she exclaimed gratefully. "I didn't realize how tired I am."

"Hungry, too, I guess," suggested Smoot. "If you're going to stick it out all night, you'll need some good chuck to hold you."

"I expect I shall," agreed Harry with a tired little laugh.

"Say, Smoot," suggested Rob, "can't you go over to Kenny's and tell 'em to send round a tray of grub?"

"All right. Anything in particular you'd like, Miss Holliday?"

"A gallon or two of water; I'm so thirsty! But don't you want to eat your own suppers?" she said, turning to Rob and Garnett.

"Shucks! We don't care when we eat," Garnett assured her. "We'll starve out this bunch first, anyhow." Then, in a lower tone, he added, "When Joyce sees you're game, he'll let up."

"I guess I'm game."

"Of course you are. I saw it that first time I spoke to you. Remember?"

"On the train?" She laughed. "Indeed I do. And you told me I'd stay. Honestly, I didn't expect to then."

"No, you didn't. But you stick to what you tackle. I kind of felt that once you'd camped in Idaho it'd get a strangle hold on you somehow."

"Well, it has. Any one seeing me hanging to a doorknob all night must realize that I like Idaho pretty well." She shivered involuntarily as she spoke.

"You're half froze. As soon as they come with that grub we'll send for a blanket."

"There comes the food now. And Mrs. Kenny. Isn't she the best, though? And I look like—I don't know what."

"Like a sure-enough fighter, and that's just what Mrs. Kenny likes."

The sun had set and it was beginning to grow chilly. Most of the crowd were drifting away. With a pot of coffee in one hand, a basket of food in the other, and a big shawl over her arm, Mrs. Kenny came sailing down the street, exchanging pungent remarks with the townsfolk as she passed; she was much like a frigate going to the rescue with guns unmasked.

"For the land sakes, girlie," she exclaimed, "is it really you? Well, you're the right stuff! Howdy, Joyce? Looks like you wasn't in this deal. How about it?"

"It's early yet," answered Joyce sourly. "Wait till four o'clock to-morrow morning."

"And if I ain't a heap sight duller than I think, you'll be some tired yourself by that time, settin' all night on the hard side of that stair-step. Better go git you some supper, you and the new herder you got there."

Joyce growled something unintelligible in reply. He held a low-toned conversation with the herder, and after a moment they walked away.

The minute they were out of sight, Mrs. Kenny caught Harry's arm. "Come on, now," she said quickly. "This is your time. You come round to the hotel the back way and get cleaned up and rested. Joyce won't dream you'll go like this, first dash out of the box. And if he did come back, why, Garnett here ain't never filed, and he can hold the door like it's for himself until you come back. Come on, now."

"That's right," insisted Garnett. "Mrs. Kenny is sure right."

When Harry came back, washed, brushed, fed, and rested, she felt prepared for anything. Joyce had not returned, and the three, Harry, Rob, and Garnett, felt certain that he had accepted defeat. Still, it would not do to run any chances, and they prepared to watch through the night.

Rob had brought some old boxes from the grocery store, and with them he built a little fire in the road; there, as the long, chilly hours passed, it glowed cheeringly. He and Garnett took turns watching the door and the fire.

But toward morning they unconsciously relaxed. Rob with his head on his knees, dozed beside the smouldering fire; Garnett, stretched near the door, nodded; and Harry, wrapped in the warm shawl, leaned her head against the back of her chair and tried to realize that morning was very near. Then suddenly she started, cried out, and clutched the doorknob just as Joyce, in stocking feet, slid swiftly across the porch.

Even as her call broke from her lips, Garnett threw himself forward, caught Joyce by the leg, and brought him to the floor. Then, dropping his hold, he sprang to his feet and stood in front of Harry, ready for what might come. Rob, too, had waked at the first sound of trouble, and had easily frustrated the herder's somewhat faint-hearted attempt to help out the sheepman.

Harry, Rob, and Garnett stood with their backs against the door, prepared for anything. But Joyce had wrenched his knee in falling and, unable to put up a good fight, limped away with angry threats.

At seven o'clock Mrs. Kenny appeared with breakfast. With her came "Old Man" Kenny and Smoot to take the place of Rob and Garnett while they went to the hotel to eat.

At nine o'clock the clerk opened the office door and the little party passed inside. After all the excitement and suspense, the mingled hope and fear through which she had lived in the last twenty-four hours, Harry was surprised at the calmness with which she went through the necessary business of signing the papers and taking the oath.

She was in a way, the calmest of all the little crowd which had collected to see the end of this exciting race and to take a good look at the girl who had "put one over hog-dollar Joyce." Every new settler means much to those already at work building homes in a new territory and almost every one who traded in town knew Rob Holliday and had heard of the hard work he and "the girl" were doing on his homestead.

The news of the race had of course run through the town and when the land office opened for Harry's filing both windows were full of heads and the porch held a crowd of complimentary size.

A low but constant whisper of explanation accompanied the gray-haired registrar's voice as he ran through the forms with Harry. When she had signed her name for the last time he carefully took off his spectacles, looked into her flushed and happy face with a kindly quizzical smile and held out his hand. "I don't know when I've filed anybody that pleased me like this has," he said; "If you keep a going on your hundred'n sixty like you came after it, young lady, you're liable to have a pretty first class ranch by time you prove up."

A laugh of appreciation from the listening group approved this remark and the many hands that shook hers as she passed down to the street assured Harry of the good will that went with her to the work before her.

They spent the forenoon in town, doing errands and, visiting with the acquaintances who had heard the story of Joyce's defeat and came around to hear the particulars. Mrs. Kenny gave them an early lunch and after thanking her for her share in the victorious siege, they started back to the ranch, Garnett going with them in order to take the team and buggy back to Hailey.

They were tired from lack of sleep and the long nervous strain, yet they were too elated with the sense of the victory they had won to let it go at that. They must talk it over and laugh at the fears they had endured, even if now and then an irrepressible yawn would sandwich in between the jokes.

"I bet I could stretch a mile if I didn't haff to walk back to meet my horse," Garnett confessed.

"And I'd drop out at the Hyslop ranch and sleep all the afternoon if I didn't hate to ask you two to wait and take me home." Harry's infectious laughter drew a smile from two riders who passed them coming in from the hills. Their felt hats pulled low over their eyes, their sunburned faces powdered with white dust, no one recognized them at first as they drew off the trail to let the buggy pass. But they touched their hats to Harry and glanced back.