The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

rie. There were a good many things she desired to investigate personally, and, though a somewhat independent young woman, she was glad

ong, light skirt, which she had not worn since she left Cedar, and which with the white hat that ma

party we are goi

ying with you all that while in New York I don't want to go back

an elixir. They swept up a rise and down it, the colour mantling in their faces, over the long hollow, and up a slope again, until, as the white grass rolled behind her, Flora Schuyler yielded to the exhilaration of swift motion, and, flinging off the constraint of the city,

finest country in

, when at last she drew bridle where a rise ran steep and seamed wi

ll of it," she said. "Wort

ad. "It's a pity one couldn't leave that out. You wou

our country. We made it, and I'd go around in rags and groom the boys' ho

is apt to find as good Americans as we are, and sometimes the men we like the m

y. "Then, of course, one would no

ine of dusty teams, the sunlight twinkling on the great breaker ploughs they hauled, while the black loam rolled in softly gleaming waves beh

re? Do they belong to yo

usually colourless face. "To us!" she said, and her voice had a thrill of

l wire fence, with a notice attached to it, barred his way. The other ploughs stopped behind him, somebody brought an axe, and Hetty set her lips when the glistening blade whirled high and fell. Thrice it flas

that she had never seen her companion look half so well, and she waited with strained expectancy for what should follow, realizing, with the dramatic instinct most women have, who the man with the axe must be. He turned slowly, s

and her voice had a curious r

, swung off his wide hat. "Aren't you and Mi

ced the figure of a mounted man forced up against the skylin

nswer, pleas

ravely, "I was cutti

ing it down?" pers

s in t

wh

from the forests of Michigan. "Of these, and the rest who are coming by and by," he said. "Still,

on the bridle, looking at him with a little scornful smile on he

ongs to my fri

e use of it, but it belongs to the United States, and other people have the ri

hile you only talked we didn't mind; but no one fancied you would have done this. Yes, I'm angry with you

ng else; and if you ask him, your father will tell you why I hav

the girl, very graciously. "It can't come to anything, Larry, and you are on

just then. He, however, looked away across the prairie, and the movement had its significance to one of the company

d I can't,

ill graciously. "Not

rd, and you wouldn't like me to go bac

ink a little, you can't help s

a good deal before starting in with this kind of thing, and I have to go t

, and as her lips hardened and every line in her slight figure seemed t

Dutchmen and these bush-choppers loose upon the people

hout just then, and when one of the vedettes on the skyline suddenly

s straight as you can. Tell your father that

its head, and in another moment they were sweeping at a gallop across the prairie. A mile had been left behind before Hetty could

rst time Larry wouldn't do what I asked him, and it was mean of him to s

necessary. Didn't it strike you that you were hurting him? That is

and that is why I got angry with him. It isn't nice to feel one has be

l, Hetty, now and then. You have read a little,

trouble in those old days were usually buried before anyone was quite sure whet

eyes. "I think if I had known a man like that one as long

working every day, and putting most of every dollar they made back into the ranch, you would find it quite difficult to believe that t

ld trouble. There are two ways of looking at everything, and othe

er cheek, and Hetty leaned forward a trifle in her saddle, with lips slightly parted, as though in strained expectancy. No sound now reached them from

s only a warni

r, until the Range rose from behind the big birch bluff. Torrance had

she said. "I asked him why he had not been to the Range, an

te commendable taste as well as good sense. You ar

see, I can't help being young and just a little good-

this fact: what a man has made and worked hard for is his own. Would anyone put up houses or raise cattle if he thought his neighbours could take them from him? Now there's going to be trouble over that question here, and, though it is

tenderness in his eyes, sat down upon the

rustlers out of the country, and, whether it sounds nice at t

sighed and his face grew stern aga

ll come through this trouble w

ls were sitting in the little room which was set apart for them, a horseman rode up

orseback always," she sai

m. It's Clavering. Now, I wonder what he put those things on for-he d

s, and he knew Hetty's appreciation of the picturesque. His sallow face showed clean cut almost to feminine refinement under the wide hat, and the blue shirt which clung about him displayed his slender symmetry. It was, however, not made of flannel, but apparently of silk, and the embroidered deerskin jacket which

himself from the saddle, and in another few moments

," said Hetty. "Ar

aid Clavering. "W

ust have seen my father on the prairie, and

at was very eloquent. "The fact is, I did. Still, I

years ago you wouldn't have wasted those speeches

's a time-honoured question," he sa

of one," said Miss Schuyler. "One feels free ou

or two the freedom may be gone, and the prairie shut off in little squares by wire fences. Then one will be permitted to ride along a trail between rows of squalid homesteads flan

asked Miss Schuyler, giving him th

two of our people seem quite willing to destroy their friends to gain cheap popularity by truckling to the rabble. Of cou

te well that if some of them are mistaken they will do nothi

down. Well, they came back a night or two later with a mob of Americans, and laid hands on the homestead. We are proud of the respect we pay women in this country, Miss Schuyler, but that night Mrs. Gordon's and her daughters' rooms were

quiet as she asked, "Was n

f a horde of rabble who held nothing sacred poured into his house at night? Oh, yes, he shot one of them, and would have given t

forehead a trifle swollen and a glow in his eyes. His story was also accura

Americans among them?"

mericans. You know

fiercely. "I don't know

isiveness in his tone. "Still, we found out that his

meeting," said Miss Torran

ery graceful inclination. "One wo

topic, and Clavering came near to pleasing her, but he did not quite succeed,

"I know just what you m

etty. "Then y

d he was clever, and he didn't come up to m

ut L

just a little in

aid. "I am, of course, quite angry with Larr

g walked down the hall with Hetty's maid. He was a well-favoured man, and the girl wa

the prairi

h what she had seen of it, and Claver

s to be picked up here, and pretty women are quite scarce. They usually get married right off to a ra

t she had a crippled sister who was a charge on the f

aid. "Now I wonder if you could fix a pin or someth

able where he had been standing. The value of it somewhat astonis

n he comes back I'll know he