The Last Straw

The last patches of snow, even in the most secluded gulches, had been licked up by the mounting sun; the waters of Coyote Creek had returned to the confines of the stream bed; in places a suggestion of green was making its appearance about the bases of grass clumps, and cottonwood buds were swelling. Four men sat on the bench before the bunkhouse of the H.C. ranch; one was braiding a belt, another whittling and two more, hats over their eyes to shield them from the brilliant light, joined in the desultory conversation from time to time.

In the pauses, such as the one now prevailing, was something besides the spirit of idling. Dad Hepburn, gray of hair, eye and mustache, but with the body of a young man, who sat nearest the doorway, glanced frequently towards the road as though expecting to see another come that way to bring fresh interest; Two-Bits Beal was uneasy and did not remain long in one pose, as men do who sit in the first real warmth of spring for its own sake; Jimmy Oliver, the whittler, stopped now and then and held his head at an angle, as if listening; and although he worked industriously at the belt it was evident that Tom Beck had thought for other affairs.

"So she was his nephew an' only heir," commented Two-Bits, gravely. Hepburn stirred and snorted softly. Jimmy Oliver looked at the homely, freckle-blotched face of the gaunt speaker and grinned. After a moment Tom Beck said:

"Two-Bits, for a smart man you know less than anybody I ever encountered! When I first set eyes on you, I said to myself, 'That man ain't real. He's no work of God A'mighty. Some of these hombres that draw cartoons for newspapers got him up.' But I thought you must have brains, seein' you're so powerful low on looks. You're a good cowhand and a first rate horse handler, but won't you ever get anything in your head but those things? Or did this cartoonist make a mistake an' put your kidneys in your skull?

"Niece; niece! Not nephew!"

"Have it your way," Two-Bits said in his high voice, swallowing so his immense Adam's apple shot up half the extraordinary length of his lean throat toward his pointed chin, and slipped back again with a jerk. "I was half right, wasn't I? She's his only heir, ain't she? You can't ask a man to be more'n half right, can you?"

"If his heir'd been a nephew instead of a niece, we wouldn't all be settin' here so anxious about this arrival," opined Jimmy. "An' we wouldn't all be wonderin' if we was goin' to work for a squaw outfit. It'll be a relief when this lady lands in our midst. Mebby there'll be less speculatin' and more work done."

"You're right," assented Dad, and pulled at his mustache. "There's a lot to do."

Tom Beck began to whistle softly and the older man glanced sideways at him uneasily; then fixed his eyes on the road.

"I'll bet two bit," volunteered Two-Bits, "that she's as homely as Tom claims I am an' about as pleasant as a hod full of bumble bees."

No one demonstrated interest in his offer and, as though he had not even heard it, Beck said:

"Seems to me there's been a lot goin' on lately, Dad. Or did you mean there was a lot more to do?"

"I don't remember such awful activity," the other replied. "'Course, there's been-"

"Nobody ever located those four mares an' their colts, did they? And the last we heard about that bunch of white faces they was headed towards Utah with a shod horse trailing 'em."

Hepburn changed what started as an impatient expostulation into a sharp sigh and relieved himself by stabbing a spur into the hard ground.

"Yes, there has been stealin'," he admitted. "There's been a lot of it. But who could do anything? The old man had been slack for years and in the last months before the end he just let go entire. He wouldn't even give anybody else authority enough to have any say; didn't even have a foreman. That's why horses an' cattle have been stole from him.

"'Course, there's been more devil to pay since he died than went on before, but when a man leaves things in a lawyer's hands and the lawyer won't even look in on the job, what you goin' to do?"

His manner was as benevolent as it was deliberate and he turned a paternal smile on Beck.

"Let the thievin' go merrily on, I expect," the other said, giving the leather strips a series of sturdy jerks to tighten the mesh.

"I expect you'd like to be foreman, wouldn't you, Dad?" Two-Bits asked innocently, whereupon Hepburn certified the accuracy of that surmisal by moving uneasily. "You'd make a fair foreman ... fair. Now Tommy here," he continued, oblivious of the older man's discomfiture and the delighted smiles of the others, "would make a fine foreman if he'd only give a damn. But he don't ... he don't. It's too bad, Tommy, you don't settle down and amount to somethin'. You're the best hand in this country!"

Beck lifted his face and sniffed loudly.

"The smell of your bouquet is about as delicate as your diplomacy, Two-Bits!" he said.

Another pause. Beck resumed his whistling and Hepburn devoted his attention to the road. Once he looked at the other from the tail of his eye and a flicker of ill temper showed in his broad, grizzled face.

"Her name's Jane, ain't it?" Two-Bits was an ardent conversationalist. "Jane Hunter! I knowed a school marm named Hunter onct. She was worse'n thunder for sourin' milk."

"I'll bet-"

"Listen!"

Oliver held up his knife in gesture and Two-Bits stopped talking. The sounds of an approaching wagon were clearly audible.

"I'll bet it's the mail instead of-"

"You lose," muttered Hepburn, getting to his feet as a buckboard swung around the bend.

"An' she sure's come to stay!" from Jimmy as he closed his knife with an air of finality.

The body of the wagon was piled high with trunks and bags and beside the driver sat a very small woman. That she was not of the west, not the sort of woman these men had been accustomed to deal with, was evident from the clothes she wore, but at least one of them remarked that she was not wholly without the qualities essential to the frontier for, when the driver dropped down to open the gate, he gave her the reins to the lathered, excited horses which had brought her from the railroad. As soon as the gate swung open they sprang forward, but she put her weight on the reins and spoke with confident authority and wrenched them back.

"Not exactly helpless, anyhow," Tom Beck said to himself.

He was the only one of the group who did not walk across toward the cottonwoods which sheltered the long, red ranch house beside the creek. He sat there, braiding his belt, an indefinable half smile on his face.

The girl-for girlishness was her outstanding quality-jumped out unassisted. She looked about slowly, at the house first of all, then at the low stable and the corrals and, lastly, down the creek, on either side of which the hills rose sharply, giving a false appearance of narrowness to the bottoms, and her eyes rested for a long moment on the ridges far below, blue and sharp in the crystal distance.

She was unaware that the driver was waiting for her to give further directions and that the three others had come close and stopped, waiting for her to notice them, for she said aloud, as though to herself:

"For a beginning, this is quite remarkable!" Then she laughed sharply, with a hard mirthless quality, and turned about. She was genuinely surprised to confront the men; evidence of this was in her eyes, which were large and remarkably blue. She smiled brightly and said:

"Oh, I didn't know I was overlooking any one! I suppose you men belong here, on the ranch, and it's likely you've been waiting for the new owner to come. Well, here I am! I'm Jane Hunter and I want to know who you are. Now what is your name?"

Her frankness, that unhesitating, assured manner of a distinct type of city-bred woman, was new but it over-rode somewhat the embarrassment they all felt.

"My name is Hepburn, ma'am," Dad said and shook hands heavily. "I hope you like this place."

"I know I shall, Mr. Hepburn. And your name?"

"That's Jimmy Oliver, Miss Hunter," Hepburn said.

Two-Bits had watched this with growing confusion and when she turned on him her searching, straightforward glance his freckles became lost in a pink suffusion. He swayed his body from the hips and looked high over her head as he offered a limp hand.

"I'm Mister Beal," he said weakly.

"Don't you believe that!" laughed Hepburn. "That's Two-Bits. He ain't entitled to any frills."

"Two-Bits it is!" the girl cried, scanning his face in amazement at its color and contour. "I couldn't call you mister, Two-Bits. We're going to be too good friends for that!"

"Oh my gosh!" giggled the flustered cowboy and turned away, seeking refuge in the bunkhouse.

"You talk about me bein' got up by a feller that draws pictures, Tom," he said to Beck. "Holy Tin Can, you ought to see her! Why, this feller that paints them girls for these here, now, magazines painted her! She looks like she walked right out of a picture, with blue eyes an' yeller hair an' all pink an' white. An' friendly.... Oh my, I'll bet she makes this outfit take notice!"

Old Carlotta, the half-breed Mexican woman who had been housekeeper at the HC for years had come from the house to greet her new mistress. The trunks were carried in, the buckboard departed for its twenty-five mile trip back to town and the riders who had been at work further down the creek straggled in to hear the first tales of their new boss.

Conjecture was high as to her plan of procedure.

"It won't take long for things to happen. You can bank on that," Jimmy Oliver declared. "She ain't our kind of a woman an' the good Lord alone knows what notions she'll have, but she'll get busy! She's that kind."

He was not wrong for just as the sun was drawing down into the hills Carlotta appeared at the bunkhouse.

"Miss Hunter, she want to spik to Se?or Dad an' Beck an' Jimmy an' Curtis," she said. "Right away, quick-pronto."

"This must be a mass meetin' with th' rest of us left out," Two-Bits said. "I'd give a dollar to look at her again ... clost up. I'll bet I wouldn't be afraid to look next time."

The four men summoned went immediately to the big house. Beck lagged a trifle and it was certain from his manner that his curiosity was not greatly excited. He appeared to be amused, for his black eyes twinkled gaily, but as they passed through the gate they set their gaze on the back of Hepburn's broad neck and a curious speculation showed in them.

Jane Hunter was waiting on the veranda which ran the length of the ranch house and without formalities began her explanation.

"You all know the situation, I believe. My uncle left me this ranch and I have come from New York to take possession. How long I remain depends on a number of things, but I find that for the present at least, I must conduct my own business. For the last four weeks, since the property came to me, it has been in the hands of Mr. Alward, the attorney in town. I arrived yesterday expecting to have his help, but his doctor has sent him into a lower altitude because of some heart difficulty and I'm alone on the job with nothing to guide me but a lengthy letter he wrote.

"I know little about business of any sort, I know nothing at all about ranching, so I have a great deal to learn. I do know that the first thing I need is an actual head for this place and that is why I called you here: to select a ... a foreman, you call him?

"Mr. Alward left word that any one of you four men would be competent and I'm going to choose one of you by chance: Understand, this is no guarantee to keep whoever is chosen on the job for any length of time, but I don't care to take the responsibility of handling the men myself, as my uncle and as Mr. Alward have done. Some one must do this and until I learn enough to know what I want I will be dependent upon whomever is selected."

She had spoken rapidly, at no loss for words, without a trace of hesitation or embarrassment, looking intently from face to face, studying the men as she explained her plan, but as she paused her eyes were on Beck's eyes and their gaze was arrested there a moment as though it had encountered something not usual.

"I am going to need all your help and all the suggestions that you can give me,"-with a slight gesture to include the four, though she still looked straight at the tall Westerner,-"but I feel that at first there must be system of some sort, a man at the head of the organization. I'm going to let you draw straws for the place."

The men stirred and looked at one another.

"That's fair enough," said Dad, with just a trace of indecision in his voice.

"For us," commented Curtis, a lean, leathery man.

Jane stooped and picked up an oat straw. She broke off four pieces and placed them tightly between her thumb and palm.

"Now, draw!" she directed, with a smile, holding them toward Curtis. "The lucky straw will be the shortest."

Curtis silently selected one of the bits. Then Jimmy Oliver drew and the two stood eyeing the lots they had picked. Hepburn had cleared his throat twice rather sharply when the drawing commenced and as he stepped forward at her gesture he manifested an eagerness which did not quite harmonize with his usual deliberation. He drew, eyed his straw and glanced sharply at those held by the other two.

Beck had not moved forward with the others, but stood back, thumbs hooked in his belt, his eyes, which were mildly smiling, still on the girl's face. She looked at him again and saw there something other than the interest that approached eagerness which had been evident in the others; she read another thing which caught her attention; the man was laughing at her, she felt, laughing at her and at the entire performance. It seemed to him to be an absurdity and as she searched his expression again and perceived that this was no bucolic whim but the attitude of a man whose assurance was as stable as her own the smile which had been on her face faded a degree.

"Now it is your turn ... the last straw," she said to him.

"Thank you, ma'am," he replied in an even, matter-of-fact voice, though that annoying smile was still in his eyes, "but I guess you can count me out."

She lowered the hand which held the straw.

"You don't care to draw?"

"That's what I meant, ma'am."

"And why not?"

She was piqued, without good reason, at this refusal.

"In the first place, ma'am, I've never taken a chance in my life, if I knew it. I've tried to arrange so I wouldn't have to. I'm a poor gambler."

A suggestion of a flush crept into the girl's cheeks, for, though his manner was all frankness, he gave the impression that this was not his reason, or, at least, not his best reason; he seemed, in a subtle manner, to be poking fun at her. "Besides," he went on, "pickin' at pieces of straw don't seem like a good way to pick men."

"You understand why it is being done that way?" Though her manner did not betray it, she felt as though she were on the defensive.

"Yes, ma'am. I wasn't reflecting on you especially. I was thinkin' about your lawyer. But you won't be so very mad, if I ain't crazy to take a chance, will you? If anybody wants to know whether I can hold a job or not, I'd sooner have 'em ask about me or try me; when it comes to drawing lots I'll have to be counted out."

His eyes had been squarely on hers throughout and when he ceased speaking they still clung. Beyond a doubt, she reasoned, that flicker in them was amusement and yet she felt no resentment towards him; was not even annoyed as she had been at his first refusal. It was interesting; it impressed her with a difference between him and the three who had drawn. For a moment she was impelled to argue; she wanted that man to help her more than she wanted to retain her poise ... just an instant.

Abruptly she turned to the others.

"Very well, we will see who did win."

The four drew close together and measured.

"Mr. Hepburn's is the shortest!" she cried; then looked at the fourth straw she still held. It was shorter by half an inch.

"You would have drawn well," she said to Beck, holding it up.

"So it seems, ma'am," he answered, but she noticed that he did not look at her. His eyes were on the new foreman's face, which was flushed with the depressions beneath the eyes puffed a bit. He was nervously breaking to shreds the straw which had won the place but about him was a bearing of unmistakable elation and something in his eyes, which were small, and about his chin suggested greed....

The four started away and Jane stood watching them. Four! And one of them was to be her deputy in life's first-and perhaps life's saving-adventure. But she did not watch him, in fact, had no thought for him. Her eyes followed Tom Beck until he was out of sight and as she turned to enter the house she said:

"But he looks as though he might take a ... long chance...."

He stood on a bearskin rug before the blazing fire, hat in hand, boots polished, tall and trim with his handsome head bowed just a trifle. The blazing logs gave the only light to the place and his bronzed face was burnished by their reflection.

"You sent for me?" he asked as she came into the room.

She advanced from the shadows and for a moment did not reply. She felt that he was taking her in from her crown of light hair, down through the smart, high-collared waist to the short, scant skirt which showed her silken clad ankles and the modish shoes. His eyes rested on those shoes. He was thinking that they were wonderfully plain for a city girl to wear, at least the sort of city girl he had ever known. But they had a simplicity which he thought went well with her manner.

"I had planned on talking to Mr. Hepburn this evening," she said. "I want to get all the information and all the advice I can from the start. Carlotta said he had gone away, so, in spite of the fact that you wouldn't gamble with me this afternoon, I sent for you. I think that you can tell me many things I need to know. You don't mind my asking you, do you? You don't feel that you'd be ... be taking a chance, talking to me?"

She took his hat.

"Sit down," motioning to the davenport before the fire. "Would you like to start with a drink?"

"Why, yes," eyeing her calculatingly.

"There's not much here. I slipped one bottle of Vermouth in a trunk. I'll have to try to mix a cocktail in a tumbler and there isn't any ice. It's likely to be a bad cocktail, but maybe it will help us talk."

She walked down the long room toward the dining table and sideboard at the far end and he heard glass clinking and liquids gurgling as he sat looking about with that small part of a smile on his features. All along the walls were books and above the cases hung trophies of the country: heads of deer and elk, a pelt of a mountain lion and of a bobcat, a pair of magnificent sheep's horns and a stuffed eagle. In the low windows were boxes of geraniums, Carlotta's pride.

"Here you are," she said as she returned, holding one of the two glasses toward Beck, who rose to accept it. "My uncle left a very small stock of drinks, but as soon as I know what I'm about I'll try to remedy that defect in an otherwise splendid establishment." Her manner was terse, brisk, open and her eyes met another's directly when she talked.

She lifted her glass to her chin's level and smiled at him.

"To the future!" she said.

His question was adroitly timed for she had just given the glass a slight toss and was already carrying its rim toward her lips when his words checked the movement.

"I take it, ma'am, that you'll want this liquor to go where it'll do your future the most good?"

He looked from her down to the cocktail he held and moved the glass in a quick little circle to set the yellow liquid swirling. His voice had been quite casual, but when he raised his eyes to meet her inquiring look the last of a twinkle was giving way to gravity.

"You mean?..."

"Just about what I said: that you'd like to have this brace of drinks do your future some good?"

"Why, yes, that was my intention. Why?"

"You called me down here to get a little advice. Let's commence here."

He reached out for her glass in a manner which was at once gentle and dominating, presumptuous but unoffending, with a measure of certainty; still, by his face, she might have told that he was experimenting with her, not just sure of how she would react, not, perhaps, caring a great deal. His fingers closed on her glass and she yielded with half laughing, half protesting astonishment. He took both glasses in one hand, moved deliberately toward the hearth and tossed their contents into the flames. He then set the empty tumblers on the mantel and turned about with a questioning smile on his lips.

The sharp, slowly dwindling hiss of quenched flame which followed completely died out before she spoke. Color had leaped into her cheeks and ebbed as quickly; her lips had shut in a tight line and for a fraction of time it was as though she would angrily demand explanation.

But she said evenly enough: "I don't understand that."

"I'm glad you didn't show how mad it made you," he replied.

"But why.... What made you do it?"

"You said, you know, that you wanted that liquor to go where it'd help your future. I thought the fire was about the best place for it under the circumstances."

"But why di-"

"And I believed you when you said you had a lot to learn and that you called me down to start the job. You have a way of makin' people think you mean what you say. I'm mighty glad to give you advice; I thought this was a good way to begin."

Jane gave a queer laugh and sat down, looking blankly into the fire. She turned her face after a moment and found him studying her as he sat at the other end of the davenport.

"I understand your meaning," she said, "but you're as startling in your actions as you must be in your reasoning. You didn't object to the idea of a drink; I didn't think many of you people did out here."

"We don't, ma'am. Most of us drink our share. I do."

"But just now you threw yours away."

"You see, I was bound to throw yours away. It wouldn't have been polite, would it, for me to drink and not let you?" His smile mocked her. "Besides," dryly-"I ain't much on these fancy drinks. You warned me that it wouldn't be so very good anyhow."

She stared at him in perplexity.

"You have no scruples against drinking?"

"Moderate drinking; no."

"Then why did you take this liberty with me?"-suggesting indignation.

"You see, you're a woman. You guessed a minute ago that there wasn't much objection to hard liquor here. I told you you were right; most of us boys drink, but we can afford to and you can't." His manner was light, almost to the degree of banter, as if that which had aroused her was the simplest of matters.

"A man in this country don't build a reputation on many things. So long as he's honest, he gets along pretty well. But a woman: that's different. She has to make people know she's right in everything she does."

"An occasional drink will make her less right?"

"Not a bit less, ma'am, but it won't help other folks to know she's right. And that's all that counts. Everybody, man or woman, who comes into the west has to make or break by what he does here; nothin' that has been, good or bad, matters. They commence from the bottom again and by what they do people judge them.

"Reputation is the first thing you've got to make for yourself. Everybody is watchin' you: the boys here on the ranch, the neighbors down creek, the people in town. You've got to show that you're honest, that you've got courage; if you were a man it could stop there, but you're a woman an' that makes it....

"Well, men out here expect things from a woman that I guess men in cities don't think so much about and you might as well know now as any time that men in this country don't like to see a woman do some of the things they do. We ain't as polite as some; we ain't as gentle, when it's necessary to act quick and for sure, but maybe we make up for some of our roughness in the idea we have of women. We think a good woman is about as fine a thing as God has made, ma'am, and we have our ideas of goodness.

"You see, you've got to handle men; you've got to have their respect and you won't have their respect if you don't understand how they think, and then act accordingly.

"Besides, you're on a job that's going to take all the brains and grit and strength you've got. Booze never helped anybody on a job like that. If you was a man and your job was just ridin' after cattle it'd be different. But neither one is the case....

"My advice, ma'am!"

She watched his face a moment before saying:

"As long as I can remember, women about me have been drinking. Ever since I grew up I've been drinking. I've never taken too much; I've never needed it; I've done it because ... because it was being done."

"Yeah. Well, it ain't done here. It's a new country and a new life for you and one of the first things you've got to learn is how to get on with people. Maybe back east some of the folks wouldn't respect you if you didn't drink. There are folks like that, who think it's smart to do certain things, and maybe there are a lot of 'em like you, who don't need it, don't even want it, but they do it because of their reputations.

"You see, it's the same rule workin' backwards out here."

The girl moved to face the fire again. She scowled a trifle and the glow on her cheeks was not wholly due to the reflection of the blazing logs.

"Did it ever occur to you that there might be people who gave little attention to what others think of them?" she asked rather coldly.

"Sure thing! There are lots like that."

"I can see where, if a stranger were to plan to stay in a place like this for long it might be expedient to ... to cater to the community morals. I don't intend to be a permanent resident. That is, I won't if I can help it. I don't expect that I'd ever come up to your notion of a worthy woman,"-a bitterness creeping into the voice-"so perhaps it is fortunate that I look on this ranch only as means to an end."

"You mean, money, ma'am?" he asked, and when she did not reply at once he went on: "Folks generally come west for one of three reasons: money or health or because they like the country. I take it your health's all right ... and that you ain't just struck with the country."

She made a slight grimace and sat forward, elbows on knees.

"Yes, money!" she said under her breath. "I came here to get it. I'm going to." She looked up at him quickly, eyebrows arched in a somewhat defiant query, and, after a pause, went on: "You don't seem to approve?"

"No, ma'am," candidly, that smile only half hidden in his eyes.

"And why not? What else is there out here for a woman like me?"

"That's a hard question. One thing she might find is herself, for instance."

She gave a startled laugh and asked:

"Herself?"

"The same, ma'am. I s'pose there are folks who live for money and what it'll bring 'em. Cities must be full of 'em, or there wouldn't be so many cities. Folks do work pretty hard to make money an' pile it up, but I've never seen any of 'em that got to be very successful in other ways. The more money they made the more they seemed to depend on makin' money to attract attention. They don't seem to think that it ain't what a man does that really counts so much as what he is. The same goes for a woman."

She sat back, brows drawn together.

"Are you trying to preach to me?" she asked sharply.

Beck laughed lightly, as though that obvious hurting of her pride delighted him.

"Not just, ma'am. Preachers hammer away at folks about sin and such. I hadn't thought about you as a sinner; I was just considerin' you and your job; and what you say brought you here.

"It's none of my business what you want to get out of life. You told me what you wanted and asked me if I didn't like it, and I don't. That's all.

"It seems to me that everybody who's alive ought to want to get the best out of himself and I don't think you can do it by just tryin' to herd dollars." He divined in her retort what she was withholding. "Sure, I'm only an ordinary cowpuncher, ma'am. I don't seem to care much about any kind of success but I'm afflicted like everybody else: I'm a human being, and every one of us likes to pick on the faults he finds in others that correspond to his own faults....

"You see, you've got a big chance here. You've got a chance to be somebody. This is one of the biggest outfits in this state. All this country out here has been this outfit's range for years. You ain't got a neighbor in miles because you amount to so much. Away down Coyote Creek, 'most thirty miles, is Riley's ranch, an' close by him is Hewitt's. Off west an' south is Pat Webb's who, far as you're concerned, might better be a good deal further west," dryly.

"Your uncle an' Riley was the first in here. Why, ma'am, they had to fight Indians to protect their cattle! They made names for 'emselves. They made money, too, or at least your uncle did, but he wasn't respected just because he made money. Men liked him because he did things.

"Men will like you if you do things, ma'am.... Perhaps you'll like yourself better, too."

He looked into her eyes and their gazes were for the moment very serious. Jane Hunter was meeting with a new sense of values; Tom Beck had sensed a faint recklessness, a despair, about her and, behind all his mockery and lightness, was a warm heart. Then she terminated the interval of silence by saying rather impatiently:

"That's all very interesting, but what you said about my needing my brains and my grit is of greater interest. Do you mean that it's just a big job naturally or that there are complications?"

"Both."

"How much of both?"

Beck shoved a hand into his pocket and gave his head a skeptical twist.

"That remains to be seen. It's a man's job to run this place under favorable conditions. Your uncle, Colonel Hunter, sort of got shiftless in the last years. He let things slide. I don't know about debts and such, but I suspect there are some. There are other things, though. You've got some envious neighbors ... and some that ain't particular how they make their money,"-with just a shade of emphasis on the last.

"You mean that they steal?"

"Plenty, ma'am."

"But how? Who?"

"I don't know, but it seems to be gettin' quite the custom here to get rich off the HC ... especially since the place changed owners."

"Why at that particular time?"

"Since it got noised about that a woman was goin' to own it there's been a lively interest in crime. I told you that your uncle was a man who was respected a lot. Some feared him, too."

"And they won't respect me because I'm a woman?"

"That's about it. It's believed, ma'am, that a woman, 'specially an Eastern woman, can't make a go of it out here, so what's the use of givin' her a fair show?"

He waited for her to speak again but she did not and he added with that experimental manner:

"So, maybe, if you want to make money, it'd be well to find a buyer. Maybe if you was to take an interest in this ranch and did want to be ... to stay in this country, you couldn't make it go."

"Do you think that's impossible?"

He waited a moment before saying:

"I don't know. You don't make a very good start, ma'am."

"At least you are deliciously frank!"

"It pays; it does away with misunderstandings. I wouldn't want you to think-since you've asked me-that I believed you could make a go of this ranch, even if you wanted to."

That stung her sharply; she drew her breath in with a slight sound and leaned quickly forward as if ready to denounce his skepticism, but she did not speak.

She only arose impatiently and walked to the mantel.

"Do you smoke?" she asked, holding out a box of cigarettes.

"Yes; do you?"

"Yes."

In the word was a clear defiance. She struck a match and held it towards him; then lighted her own cigarette.

Seated again, she stared into the fire, smoking slowly, but as his eyes remained fast on her the color crept upward into her cheeks, higher and brighter until she turned to meet the gaze that was on her and with a bite to the words asked:

"You don't approve of this, either?"

"Why, ma'am, I like to smoke."

"But you stare at me as though I were committing a crime."

"You see, you're the first good white woman I've ever seen smoke."

"You-" She checked the question, looked at him and then eyed her cigarette critically.

"I don't suppose women out here do smoke, do they?"

"No, ma'am; not much."

"And you men? You men who drink and smoke don't want the women to enjoy the same privilege?"

"That appears about it."

She did not answer. He rose and looked down upon her. One tendril of her golden hair, like silk in texture, caressed her fine-grained cheek, delicately contrasted against its alluring color. He would have liked to press it closer to the skin with his fingers ... quite gently. But he said:

"I guess you and I don't understand each other very well, and, if we don't, it ain't any use in our talking further. As for advisin' you about your business...."

Jane blew on her ash.

"I just tried to show you how to start right, accordin' to my notion, and if it made you mad I'm sorry.

"After all, it don't make so much difference what other folks think of us. It's what we think of ourselves that counts most, but none of us can get clear away from the other hombre's ideas."

That twinkle crept back in to his eyes. Her little frame fairly bristled independence and self-sufficiency; it was in the pert set of her head, the poise of her square shoulders, the languid swinging of one small foot.

"I think that you think a lot of yourself, ma'am. That's more 'n most folks can say."

She rose as he reached for his hat.

"I'm glad to have your opinion on the proportions of my job," she said briefly, "and for that I am glad that you came in."

The oblique rebuke could not be misunderstood.

"I'm complimented," he replied, and, although she looked frankly and impersonally up at him, she had a quick fear that despite her assurance this man was leaving her with a strange feeling of inferiority, and when he went through the doorway into the night she was quite certain he was smiling merrily.

She stood until the sound of his footsteps dwindled, then turned to the table and stood idly caressing the wood. Her fingers encountered something which she picked up and examined, at first abstractedly. It was a bit of straw, the one Beck had refused and, which drawn, would have made him her right hand man. She moved towards the fire to toss it into the flames; checked herself and, instead, put it between the covers of a book which lay handy.

She stood on the stone hearth thinking of what he had said, cigarette smoke curling up her small hand and delicate wrist. The offended feeling subsided and, wonderingly, she tried to restimulate it; the sensation would not return! Of a sudden she felt small and weak and of little consequence.

So he doubted, even, that she could be herself!

She dropped the stub of her cigarette into the fire and, frowning, reached for another, and tapped its end on the mantel. She struck a match and put the white cylinder to her lips. Then, quite slowly, she waved the glare out and tossed the tiny stick into the coals. With a movement which was so deliberate that it was almost weary she dropped the unlighted cigarette after it. Slight as was the gesture there was in it something of finality.

The coals were dimmed with ash before she moved to walk slowly to the window and look out. It was cold and still.

A movement among the cottonwoods attracted her. A man was walking there, slowly, as one on patrol. She watched him go the length of the row of trees; then followed his slow progress back, saw him stand watching the house a moment before he moved on towards the bunkhouse.

She lay awake for hours that night, partly from a helpless rage and, later, a rare thrill, a hope, perhaps, kept sleep from her mind.

"Now about the men, Miss Hunter," said Hepburn. When he reached this subject he looked through the deep window far down the creek and had Jane known him better she might have seen hesitancy with his deliberation, as though he approached the subject reluctantly.

"How many will you need?" she asked.

"Not many yet. Four besides myself. There's seven here now. That is, there'll be six, because one is pullin' out this mornin' of his own accord. We'll need more when the round-up starts, but until then-about June-we can get along. The fewer the better."

"That will be largely up to you. Of course, I will be consulted."

"I guess we'll keep Curtis and Oliver. Then there's Two-Bits-"

"Oh, keep Two-Bits by all means!" she laughed. "I'm in love with him already!"

"All right, we'll keep Two-Bits. As for the other, there's a chance to choose because-"

"Beck; how about him?"

Her manner was a bit too casual and she folded a sheet of memoranda with minute care before her foreman, who eyed her sharply, replied:

"He's settled that for himself, I guess. He was packin' his war bag when I come down here. I told him to come to the house for his time."

"You mean he's leaving?"

Hepburn nodded.

"Why?"

"Well, I guess his nose is out of joint at not bein' picked for foreman."

"But he wouldn't even draw. Said he wouldn't take a chance!"

"I know. He appeared not to give a hang for the job, but he's a funny man. He an' I never got along any too well. We don't hitch."

"Is he a good worker?"

"If he wants to be. He don't say much, but he always.... Why, he always seems to be laughin' at everybody and everything."

"I think I could persuade him to want to work for me."

"Perhaps. But then, too, he's hot tempered. In kind of bad with some of the boys over trouble he's had."

"What trouble?"

"Why, principally because he beat up a man-Sam McKee-on the beef ride last fall."

"What for?"

"Well.... He thought this man was a little rough with his horse."

"And he whipped him because he had abused a horse? That, it seems to me, isn't much against him."

"No; maybe not. He beat him a sight worse than he beat his horse," he explained, moving uneasily. "Anyhow, he's settled that. Here he comes now, after his time."

Jane stepped nearer the window. Beck approached, whistling softly. He wore leather chaps with a leather fringe and great, silver conchos. A revolver swung at his hip. His movements were easy and graceful. She opened the door and, seeing her, he removed his hat.

"I've come for my time, ma'am," he explained.

"Won't you come in? Maybe you're not going to go just yet."

He entered and she thought that as he glanced at Hepburn, who did not look up, his eyes danced with a flicker of delight.

"I don't know as I can stay, ma'am. I told your foreman a little while ago that I'd be going. Somebody's got to go, and it may as well be one as another."

"Don't you think my wishes should be consulted?" she asked.

He twirled his hat, looking at her with a half smile.

"This is your outfit, ma'am. I should think your wishes ought to go, but it won't do for you to start in with more trouble than's necessary."

"But if I want you and Mr. Hepburn wants you, where is the chance for trouble? You do want him, don't you, Mr. Hepburn?"

The older man looked up with a forced grin.

"Bless you, Miss Hunter, yes! Why, Tom, the only reason I thought we might as well part was because I figured you'd be discontented here."

"Now! You see, your employer wants you and your foreman wants you. What more can you ask?" the girl exclaimed, facing Beck.

"Nothin' much, of course, unless what I think about it might matter."

Her enthusiasm ebbed and she looked at him, clearly troubled.

"I am not urging you to stay because I need one more man. It is essential to have men I can trust. I can trust you. I need you. I ... I'm quite alone, you know, and I have decided to stay ... if I can stay."

She flushed ever so slightly at the indefinable change in his eyes.

"You told me last night some of the things I must do, which I can't do wholly alone. I should like very much to have you stay,"-ending with a girlish simplicity quite unlike her usual manner.

"Maybe my advice and help ain't what you'd call good," he said.

"I thought it over when you had gone," she said, "and I came to the conclusion that it was good advice." Her eyes remained on his, splendidly frank.

"Some of us are apt to be disconcerted when we listen to new things; and, again, when we know that they come sincerely and our pride quits hurting we're inclined, perhaps, to take a new point of view. I have, on some things."

His face sobered in the rare way it had and he said:

"I'm mighty glad."

Hepburn had watched them closely, not understanding, and in his usually amiable face was a cunning speculation.

"I wouldn't ask you to take a chance against your better judgment. If you must move on, I'm sorry. But ... I need you."

With those three words she had ended: I need you. But in them was a plea, frank, unabashed, and her eyes were filled with it and as he stood looking down at his hat, evidently undecided, she lifted one hand in appeal and spoke again in a tone that was low and sweet:

"Won't you, please?"

He nodded and said:

"I'll stay."

"I'm so glad!" she cried. "And you're glad, aren't you, Mr. Hepburn?"

The foreman had watched closely, trying to determine just what this all meant, but not knowing what had gone before, he was mystified. At her question he forced a show of heavy enthusiasm and said:

"Bet your life!" Then looking up to see the tall cowboy eyeing him with that half humorous smile, he rose and said:

"Now we can start doing business. Tom, Miss Hunter wants a horse, says she can ride and wants the best we've got, right off, to-day. There's that bunch that's been ranging in Little Pi?on all winter. Guess we'd better bring 'em down this forenoon and let her pick one."

They departed. They had little to say to one another in the hours it required to gather the horses and bring them down, but when they were within sight of the corrals Hepburn began to speak as though what he had to say was the result of careful deliberation.

"I don't want us to have any misunderstandin', Tom. This mornin' I figured you wanted to move and I don't want any man in the outfit who'd rather be somewhere else, so long as I'm runnin' it." He shifted his weight in the saddle and glanced at Beck, who rode looking straight ahead. "'Course, you and I ain't been pals. I've thought sometimes you didn't just like me-"

"I s'pose she'll want a gentle horse," the other broke in.

"Prob'ly....

"You and I can be friends, I know. We can get along-"

"Look at this outfit!" Beck interrupted again, this time with better reason.

Around the bend in the road appeared a queer cavalcade. It was headed by a pair of ancient mules drawing a covered wagon, on the seat of which sat a scrawny, discouraged man with drooping lids, mustache and shoulders. To the wagon were tied three old mares and behind them trailed a half dozen colts, ranging from one only a few weeks old to a runty three-year-old.

These were followed by a score of cattle, mostly cows and yearling calves, and the rear was brought up by a girl, riding a big brown horse.

She was young, and yet her face was strangely mature. She wore a hat, the worse for wear, a red shirt, open at the throat, a riding skirt and dusty boots. She was slouched easily in the saddle, as one who has ridden much.

Tom spurred ahead to prevent their horses from entering a draw which opened on the road just where they must pass and as he slowed to a walk and looked back he saw Hepburn making a movement of one hand. That hand was just dropping to the fork of his saddle but-and he knew that this may have been purely a product of his imagination-he thought that it had been lifted in a gesture of warning.

The foreman halted and the wagon stopped with a creak, as of relief.

"Just foller on down and swing to the left. Keep right on. You'll pass the state boundry," Beck heard Hepburn say.

The wagon started again and Dad joined him.

"Goin' some place?" Tom asked.

"Utah. He was askin' the way."

Just then the girl came within easy talking distance.

"Goin' far?" Tom asked.

"Not so very fur," the other replied sullenly and swung a worn quirt against her boot.

They rode on after their horses.

"Nesters," Beck commented grimly. "They're a bad lot to see comin' in."

"Thank God, they're headed for Utah," Dad replied.

"Yeah. Utah's a long ways, though. The girl didn't seem to think they was going so very far."

The other made no answer and after a moment Beck said:

"Notice the brand on them cattle? THO? That ain't a good neighbor for the HC to have.... Unless it's an honest neighbor."

"Well, they're goin' into Utah," Dad said doggedly.

"You know, Hepburn, one of the first things I'd do if I was foreman of this outfit?" Beck asked.

"What's that?"

"Take up the water in Devil's Hole. That's the best early feed this outfit has got, but without water it's worthless. Nesters are comin' in, which would worry me, if I was foreman. The Colonel had somebody file on it once, planning to buy when he'd patented the claim. This party didn't make good, and the matter dropped."

The other did not reply for a moment, but looked hard at his horse's ears, as if struggling to control himself.

"I've already took that up with her," he said sulkily, and stirred in his saddle.

"If I wasn't foreman of an outfit, do you know what I'd do? I'd let the foreman do the worryin'."

Beck scratched his chin with a concern which surely could not have been genuine, for he said:

"Yeah. That's the best way. Only..."

"Well, you had your chance to be foreman; why didn't you take it?"

Beck pondered a moment.

"In the first place I wasn't crazy wild to stay with this outfit, 'cause when I lift my nose in the air and sniff real careful, I can smell a lot of hell coming this way, and I'm a mighty meek and peaceful citizen.

"In the second place, I don't care much about drawing the best job in the country like I'd draw a prize cake at a church social."

Hepburn sniffed.

"You passed it up, though. Now, why don't you pass up worryin' about my job?"

Beck did not reply at once, but turned on the other a taunting, maddening smile.

"You're right. I passed it up, but there's something that won't let me pass up the worry.

"You know what that is,"-nodding toward the distant ranch house. "You know she's in a jack pot. You heard her tell me she needed good men, men she could trust, and the good Lord knows that's so. You know I stayed on because she asked me like she meant it and not because I fancied the job.

"I've got a notion that makin' good out here means more to her than making money; I like her style, and I like to help her sort if I can. That's why I may do more 'n an ordinary hand's share of worryin'.

"You know, somebody's got to,"-significantly.

"What's meant by that, Beck?" Dad asked after a moment and the grit in his tone told that the insinuation had not missed its mark.

"If it was so awful hard for you to guess, Hepburn, I don't think you'd get on the peck so easy. I mean that since she's asked me to stay and work for her, I'm on the job. Not only with both hands and feet and what head I've got, but with my eyes and my ears and my heart.

"I don't want trouble, but if I've got to take trouble on, I'll do it on the run; you can tie to that! I don't like you, Hepburn; I don't trust you. Your way ain't my way-No, no, you listen to me!" as the other attempted to interrupt. "A while back you was trying to talk friendship to me when I'm about as popular with you as fever. I don't do things in that style. I ain't got a thing on you, but if this was my ranch I wouldn't want you for my foreman."

"You mean you think I'd double cross her an-"

"I don't recall bein' that specific. I just mentioned that I don't trust you. There's no use in your getting so wrought up over it. I may be wrong. If I am you'll win. I may be takin' a chance, which is against my religion, but I'm here to work for this Hunter girl and her only and it won't be healthy for anybody who is working against her to bring himself to my notice.

"I guess we understand each other. Maybe you can get me fired. If so, that's satisfactory to me. So long as I'm here and working for you, I'll be the best hand you've got. If you're lookin' for good hands I'll satisfy you. If you ain't ... we may not get along so well."

There was a seriousness in his eyes, but behind it was again the flicker of mockery as though this might not be such a serious matter after all.

"We'll see, Beck," Hepburn said with a slow nodding. "We understand each other. You've covered a lot of territory. Your cards are on the table. Bet!"

Tom stroked his horse's withers thoughtfully. He continued to smile, but the smile was not pleasant.

When they entered the big gate an automobile was standing before the bunkhouse and after turning the horses into a corral they dismounted and walked towards it.

"Hello, Larry!" exclaimed Hepburn. "What brings you out?"

"Nothin' much, judgin' by his conversation," replied the man who had driven the car.

"Visitor?"

"Dude. Regular dude from N'Yawk, b' Gosh!" He spat and grinned. "Come in yesterday and was busier 'n hell all day buzzin' around town. First thing this a. m. he wants to come here. Great attraction you've got, it seems."

"The new boss?"

"Th' same, indeed! I seen her. Quite a peach, I'll go on record. But ... Th' boys tell me she's going to run this outfit with her own lily white hands."

"So she says," replied Dad benevolently. "I think she'll do a good job, too."

"Like so much hell, you do! An' I hear you're foreman, Dad. You figurin' on marryin' the outfit or gettin' rich by honest endeavor?"

"Sho, Larry! You and your jokes!" the man grumbled good naturedly and entered the building.

"Well, if any of you waddies are calculatin' marryin' this filly you've got to build to her. This dude sure means business. He's found out more about the HC in one day than I ever knew. Besides, what I knew an' he didn't he got comin' out. Sure's a devil for obtainin' news.

"There he is now; see?"

He gestured toward the ranch house where Jane and the stranger stood on the veranda, the girl pointing to the great sweep of country which showed down creek. Then they turned and reentered the house.

"And so this is yours!" the man laughed. "Yours and your business!"

"My business, Dick! For the first time I feel as though I had a real object in living."

He smiled cynically.

"Jane, Queen of the Range!" he mocked.

She did not smile with him, but said soberly:

"I expect it is funny to you. It must be funny to all the old crowd. I can hear them, as soon as they know that I have decided to stay here, the girls at tea, the men in their clubs, talking it over. Jane Hunter, burying herself in the mountains and doing something, becoming earnest and serious minded, getting up with the sun and going to bed at dark! It is strange!"

"It's too strange for life, Jane," he said, pulling up his trousers gingerly and sitting on the davenport. He leaned back and smoothed his sleek hair. "It isn't real. You're going to wake up before long and find that out.

"It was absurd enough for you to come here, but this preposterous notion that you are going to stay.... Why, that's beyond words! What got into you, anyhow?"

He eyed her closely.

"I don't know, yet. It's a strange impulse but it's real, the first real thing that's ever gotten into me, I guess. I know only that ... except that it is a pleasant sensation.

"When I left New York I was desperate. I came here to take something tangible that was mine and go back with it and now I've found out that the thing I want is nothing that I can see or touch, that I can't take it away with me. Not for a long time, anyhow. It isn't waiting ready-made for me; I must create it from the materials that are in my hands."

He continued to look at her a thoughtful moment.

"You've told me a lot about yourself and about this ranch and about these men who are working for you. You've told me about this country and, rather vaguely, about your plans. I suspect you don't know much about them yet," he added parenthetically. "You've not asked a question about New York, nor why I came."

She picked a yellowed leaf from a geranium plant and turned to face him.

"As for New York," she said with a lift of the eyebrows and a quick tilt of her head, "I don't give a ... damn,"-softly. "As for your coming, I didn't need ask. When a man has followed a girl wherever she has gone, to sea, to other countries, for four years, there is nothing surprising in the fact that he should trail her only two-thirds of the way across this continent....

"But it's no use, Dick. I made up my mind that I would not marry you before I came here. I tried to convince you of the honesty of my purpose in my last letter, but perhaps I failed because I wasn't truly honest with myself then. I thought I was through, but, in reality, I was only planning a variation of the old way of doing things.

"Now I'm finished, absolutely, with the rot I've called life!"

She lifted her chin and shook her head in emphasis. The man laughed.

"You amuse as much as you thrill me," he said, looking at her hungrily.

"That's a splendid way to help a fellow: to laugh at the first effort I make to justify my existence."

"I want to help you, Jane. I've always wanted to help you. I've put myself and what I have at your disposal. I've not only done that, but I've begged and pleaded and schemed to make you take them. You'd never listen when I talked love to you.

"You've always seemed to be a peculiarly material-minded girl and I had to play on that. But when I've talked ease and comfort and luxury to you, you know that I've meant more than just those things. It's been love, Jane ... love in every syllable."

He rose and walked to stand before her.

"That hurt," she said, with a sharp little laugh. "That ... materialism. But I believe it was only too true. It had to be, you see. It was the only thing I could see to live for. There was the one thing I missed, the thing I had expected to find. It was the thing you talked about: Love. I wanted love, tried to find love and at twenty-five gave it up. That's a horrible thing, Dick. Giving that up at twenty-five!"

"But I have offered you love, continually, for four years."

"Dick ... oh, Dick! You don't know what that means. You showed that when you selected your tactics: trying to give me things that I could taste and touch and see.

"If it had been love, the real thing, that you felt, you'd have overwhelmed me with it, you would not have allowed another consideration to enter, you'd have swept me off my feet with making me understand that it was love. You wouldn't have talked places and motors, luxury and aimlessness."

Her voice shook. She was hurt, bordering on anger.

"You pass the buck," he retorted evenly. "You've told me, time after time, that love didn't matter to you."

"Not the sort you offered. It never could."

"There's another kind, then?"

"Somewhere,"-with an emphatic nod.

"You think you can find the sort you're looking for here?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet, but I know there is something else I can find."

"And that?"

"Myself!"-stoutly.

He threw back his head with a hearty laugh.

"You talk like a convert, Jane!"

"I am, Dick. Just that. I've seen the evil of my ways, I have seen the light; I'm going to try to justify my existence, going to try to stand for something, to be something, not just a girl with looks or with ... money.

"I may miss love entirely, but I have realized, all of a sudden, that as yet I'm not fit for the love I wanted. Why, I have nothing to give to a man; I would take all and give nothing. A woman doesn't win a true love by such a transaction. If I can stand alone, if I can fight my own battles, if I can overcome obstacles that are as real as the love I have wanted, then I will be justified in seeking that love....

"And there's another consideration: If this thing I have wanted never does come I have the opportunity of gaining all that you say you could give me by my own efforts: the comforts, the material things. I wouldn't be trading myself for them, you see; I'll be winning them with my hands and what intelligence I may possess."

"Are you sure of that, Jane? Are you sure that a girl who has never done a tap of work in her life, who has not even talked business with business men can come out here and beat this game? Oh, I know what I'm talking about and you don't. I spent all yesterday in town looking up this place because your letter was convincing in at least one thing. I know your enthusiasm, when it's aroused. I know that you'd rush in where a business prince wouldn't even chance a peek!

"When men talk about you in town they grin. The bartender grinned when he told me about you. The banker grinned. The man who drove me out thought it was a fine joke! These men know; they're not skeptical because they know you or your past, but they know the job and that you're a stranger. That's enough. You can't beat another man's game."

"I can try, can't I?"

"But what's the use?"-with a gesture of impatience and a set of the mouth that was far from pleasant. "You're doomed to fail and even if you should hit on the one chance in a thousand of pulling through, what would you get? Less than I can give you in the time it takes to sign my name. You won't let me talk love and you don't seem to have much hope that you ever will find the love you think you want, so let's put love aside once more. Come with me, Jane. I'll give you all you could ever hope to get here and without the cost of the awful effort anything like success would require.

"You've been bored, perhaps, and discouraged. You've taken this thing as a ... a last straw. Won't you listen to reason?"

"The last straw," she repeated. "Yes, I guess that is it. Dick, do you know how close I came to letting you do the thing you want to do?" She put the question sharply. "I'll tell you: Within three hundred dollars! That's how close.

"Oh, you don't know the game I've played. No one knows it. You all have just seen the exterior, the show. You've never been behind the scenes with me.

"I never knew my mother. I never knew my father well. I don't know that he cared much for me after she went; perhaps, though, he was only afraid to bring up a girl alone. First, it was boarding school, then finishing school, then a woman companion of the smart sort. Then he died, and we discovered that his fortune was not what it had been, that it was a miserable thing for a girl to depend on who had been trained as I had been trained.

"You met me soon after I was alone. I fell in with your crowd and they picked me up. I didn't like them particularly and certainly I didn't like their life, but it was the only one open for me. We lived hard, heartless lives, made up of week-ends and dances and cocktails and greed!

"Materialism is the right charge! I was steeped in it; all those girls were. It was the only thing any of us lived for. Girls sold themselves for material advantage; they loathed it, most of them, but they lied to themselves and tried to make the rest of us believe it was happiness. They knew, and we knew what it was and we knew, too, that they were helpless to do otherwise.

"Then you came and made love to me on the same crass basis. I liked you, Dick. I didn't love you. I cared no more for you than I did for three or four men so I kept putting you off, never actually discouraging you to a point where you would give up. I was simply closing my eyes to the inevitable.

"Now and then we met women, to us strange creatures, who did things. I never can make anyone understand how inferior I felt beside them. Why, I remember one little decorator who, because she was young and cheap, came to do my apartment over. I had her stay for dinner and she was quite overwhelmed with many things.

"When she went away I cried from sheer envy ... and she was going down somewhere into Greenwich Village to sleep in a stuffy little studio. But she was doing something. I used to feel guilty before my dressmaker and even my maid. I didn't understand why that was, then; it was not a sensation produced by reason; by intuition, rather.

"And then I had to look at things as they were. I paid up everything and totaled my bank balance. Every source of income I had ever had was gone and I had left ... three hundred and two dollars. That was on a Friday, the Friday of our last week-end party at the Hollisters' in Westchester.

"You talked to me again that night after we had been playing billiards. Dick, I had made up my mind to take you up. The words were on my lips; I was within a breath of telling you that it was a bargain, that I'd sell myself to you for the things you could buy me....

"I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it was this part of me I had never known until I came here, this part which enthuses so over what lies before me now, the part that used to envy the girls who did things. We went back to town and there was a letter for me from this little frontier law office, telling me I had inherited this ranch. I didn't sleep a minute. I was sole owner of a big business....

"I never can make you understand the relief I experienced! It meant money and money meant that I could go on in the old way, putting off the inevitable, blinding myself to what I actually was.

"That was my motive in coming here: to turn this property into money. And no sooner had I made the acquaintance of these people than I began to learn that my point of view had been radically different from theirs. I had thought that money would give me the thing I wanted, independence and prestige; but I found that with them, with the best of them, anyhow, that sort of standing was not considered.

"The thing that counts out here is being yourself, Dick, in making a place by your determination, your wits, by impressing people with the best that is in you. Material things don't count in the mountains; that is, they don't count primarily. They are nice things to possess but the possession of them alone does not bring respect ... the respect of others or self respect. That, I think, is what I want: respect. That is what I am going to win. The only way I can win it is to establish a place for myself by my own efforts. These men doubt that I can do it. You are right, I believe, when you picture the whole country expecting me to fail. Well, that's an incentive, isn't it, to do my best? That is what I am here to do!

"There, there's Book One." Then looking out into the country.... "There's the rest of the story."

The man did not reply for an instant but stood frowning at the floor.

"And when you fail? What then?"

She laughed almost merrily.

"Don't say when so positively! But if I should fail, Dick, I might have to take you up! It might break my faith in myself because it's a young, immature faith, but it will give me a chance, a few months of seeing whether I'm of any account. It gives me a hope."

As she spoke of her alternative a glimmer as of hope passed across the man's thin, finely moulded face but he did not let her see. He shook his head and said:

"After this the first thing I need is a drink."

"On the sideboard," she answered, "is my stock."

He walked down the room and examined the bottles, then poured out two drinks and returned with them.

"Anyhow, we'll drink to your future, whatever and wherever it may be," he said, cynical again.

"That's kind of you, but I'm afraid you'll have to drink alone."

She put the glass he had handed her on the table.

"It's the first time I've ever seen you refuse a drink."

"A record broken! That, like the rest of the old life, all belongs in Book One."

"You ... you never thought you used enough to hurt?"

"No. I'm sure I never used enough to hurt my body. I never thought I used enough to hurt anything about me ... until last night."

"What made you change your mind?"

She was half impelled to pass the question off, then said resolutely:

"A man came here to talk to me, one of my cowpunchers. I made a cocktail. He threw it away."

"Well, that was a devil of a thing to do. Did you fire him, as he deserved?"

"No,"-deliberately, tracing a line on a rug with her toe and watching it critically-"I took his advice. You see, the men out here expect things from women that no one has ever expected from me before."

He sneered: "Turned Puritan, Jane? A sweet thing to face, trying to be other than yourself, confining yourself to the morals of the crowd."

"Not just that, Dick. There's a sweetness about it, yes. As for morals: we didn't discuss them at all....

"This man said that he supposed some people thought it was smart to drink. That hit me rather on the head. We were, the smartest people in New York, weren't we?"

"Rot!"

"Perhaps. It interested me, though, when I'd gotten over the first shock. He said another thing that interested me; he said that I was the first good white woman he'd ever seen smoke."

He laughed harshly.

"At least he did you the honor to think you good."

"Yes,"-still deliberately,-"and it was a novel sensation. It was the first time any man had ever appealed to the commonplace thing in me that we call womanhood. He wasn't preaching. It was a practical matter with him....

"I don't think you'd understand this man, Dick. He takes little things quite seriously and yet he appears to be laughing at the whole scheme all the time."

He put his glass down slowly.

"Do you mean that one of these roughnecks has been making love to you?"

"Oh, by no means. I don't think he even likes me and I want him to! Why, this morning he was going away, was not even going to work for me, and I had to beg him to stay.

"Dick, you don't understand! This man is so different from you, from me, from all of us. Rough, yes, but I don't think he'd try to buy a woman. And if he should I'm sure he'd be most frank about it; he wouldn't hide behind words."

She looked hard at him and though she smiled her words stung him, but before he could break in she went on:

"When I sat here having him talk to me last night I had that dreadful inferior feeling again, felt as though I weren't up to the standard of good women that these roughnecks hold. I can't explain it to you because you wouldn't let yourself understand. I was furious for a time, but he was right, according to his way of thinking.

"That way is going to be my way,"-with growing firmness. "I'm playing a new game and I must play it according to the rules. I did more than make up my mind to leave the drinks and cigarettes alone. I resolved that I'd try to be worthy in every way of the respect I want these men to have for me!"

"Because this Westerner doesn't approve of the way you have lived?"

"Yes. He knows the rules of the new game."

"Jane, I'm going to stop this foolishness!" He advanced to her and caught her hands in his. "I love you, I love you! I'm not going to see you losing your head this way!"

She struggled to withdraw her hands.

"No, I'm going to hold you, going to keep you. I'm-" He drew her to him roughly, but she slipped from the clasp of his arm and backed across the room, her hands still imprisoned in his.

"Dick!"

It was not her cry which caused him to halt. It was a step outside the door and, standing there, her hands in his, he met the level, amused gaze of Tom Beck.

Jane turned from him and he let her go without attempt to restrain her further.

"Ma'am, the horses are here. Your foreman said to tell you."

His face lost a measure of its lightness as he stood hat in hand, looking from the man whose face was lined with passion to the girl, flushed and a bit breathless.

"Very well.... And thank you. I'll be out soon."

He stood a moment irresolute, as though he thought his presence might be needed there. Then turned and walked away.

"Your help seems rather unceremonious," Hilton remarked.

"Thanks for that! What if he had seen more? Dick, are you beside yourself? You call this love?"

"It proves that it's love," he replied tensely. "You set me wild with your vagaries, Jane! You-" He checked himself and, with an obvious effort, smiled. Then went on with voice and manner under control: "You see, I am much in love with you and losing you for only a little while puts me a bit off my head.

"I have wanted you for four years and I'm jealous of the months, even the weeks. I'm sure, but that doesn't help much."

"Sure? Of what?"

"Of you."

"And why?"

"Because I know you. You confessed your weaknesses just a moment ago. You know as well as I that you're without foundation, without background in this experience. Why, Jane, if you'd been capable of fighting your own battles, you'd have forced the issue long before it was necessary, but you are not. You need help, you need the faith of other people.

"Why, women like you weren't made to stand alone!"

"Flattering!"

"Yes, it is. You were made to be loved, to be protected, to have the men take the knocks for you, you and all your kind. You were born to lean and to make the lives of men worth while by leaning on them, never to attempt to go your own way. You have always done just this and you have admitted it, here, this afternoon.

"Your wild wants, your absurd desires.... Everyone has them. That is a rule of life: wanting to do the thing you are not fitted to do. You can no more be a business woman than I can fly; you can no more cut yourself away from your old environment and slip into this than one of your cowpunchers could fit into my life.

"Don't you see that you're risking disaster? In your old life you had a belief in yourself; in this you think you have, but you have not, your eyes will be opened and when you see that you have failed ... then you will be a failure, and nothing is so hopeless as that realization.

"You are weak, and I thank God for that weakness. You know that it is either this, or me. You are trying this, trying to refuse me, but you will come back to me just as surely as we stand together in this room. You may come back without a shred of faith in yourself, but I have faith in you, in the old Jane, the one I know and love, and I can bring that back. The future won't be bad; it will be wholly good."

His words were very gentle, his manner most kindly, but beneath it was a scarcely detectable hardness, a deliberate, cold determination, and perhaps it was this which struck a fear into the girl's heart.

Weak? Surely, she was weak! Always had been weak, never had proved strength by act or decision until now. And she did not know ... she did not know....

"You are sure that I will come back?" she managed to say naturally enough. "What if I should fail? Might I not try somewhere else?"

"You might, if you were another sort. But you won't. And you will fail, in spite of all you can do, Jane."

She sensed clearly the harsh strength beneath his smooth manner; his pronouncement had not been as an opinion; as a verdict, rather, and ominous in its assurance.

He picked up his hat and gloves.

"I know; I know. It is of no use to argue with you. You must learn this lesson by experience. It is going to be bitter, but I will do all I can to make what waits beyond take away that taste, Jane.

"I am not going away. I'm going to stay in this little town. After four years of waiting and following I can well do that. Your world is there, Jane, yours for the asking. There are the things you wanted; there is the love you want if you only will see it."

He left her then and when he had gone she felt a quick panic come. It all seemed so absurd, her struggling in the things which held her back; and his manner left her with a sense that he thought more than he had spoken, that his assurance was founded well, that he would not be the tacit waiter he had suggested. She knew his passion for her, she knew his will and it came to her then that beneath his sleekness he was ruthless.

She stared down Coyote creek, not following him with her eyes.

"The things I have wanted.... Yes," she thought. "But love: is that anywhere?"

The sound of the car departing roused her and she watched it go. Then a commotion in the corral attracted her. She saw horses milling, saw Tom Beck standing ready, rope in his hand; then, with a dexterous flip of the loop, a slight, overhand motion, he snared a pinto and braced his feet against the antics of the animal and held firmly until it had quieted.

She watched him go down the rope slowly, hand over hand, with caution and assurance until he rested his fingers on the nose of the frightened animal. A forefoot shot out in a lightning stroke at him but he did not flinch. She saw that he was talking to the horse, gently, quietly, with the born confidence of the master.

"Anywhere?" she asked herself again, this time aloud, still watching Beck. "Why,"-eyes lighting in surprise that was almost astonishment-"it might be ... might be!"