't to do with his personal feelin's."

Rosebud went on with her washing without speaking. She was thinking of
that picnic she had taken with Seth and General nearly three weeks ago. It
had almost developed into a serious quarrel. It would have done so, only
Seth refused to quarrel.

"He said, one day, he thought it was better I should go. Much better," she
said, presently. "Well, it made me angry. I don't want to go, and I don't
see why Seth should be allowed to order me to go. The farm doesn't belong
to him. Besides----"

"Well, y' see, Rosebud, you're forgettin' Seth brought you here. He's a
kind of father to you." Ma smiled mischievously in the girl's direction,
but Rosebud was too busy with her own thoughts to heed it.

"He's not my father, or anything of the kind. He's just Seth. He's not
thirty yet, and I am eighteen. Pa's a father to me, and you are my mother.
And Seth--Seth's no relation at all. And I'm just not going to call him
'Daddy' ever again. It's that that makes him think he's got the right to
order me about," she added, as a hasty afterthought.

Further talk was interrupted at that moment by a knock at the back door.
Rosebud passed out into the wash-house to answer the summons, and Ma
Sampson heard her greet the Indian woman, Wanaha. The old farmwife
muttered to herself as she turned back to her work.

"Guess Seth ain't got the speed of a jibbin' mule," she said slowly and
emphatically.

The girl did not return, and Ma, looking out of the window, saw the two
women walking together, engaged in earnest conversation. She looked from
them to the breakfast things, and finally left her own work and finished
the washing up herself. It was part of her way to spare Rosebud as much as
she could, and the excuse served her now.

While Rosebud was receiving a visit from Wanaha at the back of the house,
the men-folk, engaged in off-loading pine logs from a wagon, were
receiving visitors at the front of it. The Indian Agent and Mr.
Hargreaves had driven up in a buckboard. The Agent's team was sweating
profusely, a fact which the sharp eyes of Seth were quick to detect; also
he noted that Parker was driving a team and not the usual one horse.

"Kind o' busy?" questioned Seth, in answer to the two men's greetings.

The Agent glanced at the steaming horses and nodded.

"Going into Beacon Crossing," he said.

"Ah," said Rube, in his heavy, guttural fashion. "Gettin' fixin's?"

The Agent smiled, and nodded at