hapeless but unmistakably hard, and his grayish-blue
eyes were cold--very cold; try as she would, Kate could discern little
love or sympathy in them. This was the man who almost twenty years
earlier had deserted her mother and wee Kate, the baby, and long
disappeared from Eastern view--until by accident the fact that he was
alive and in the far West had become known to his wife and daughter.
Kate thought she understood something of the tragedy in her mother's
life when the first sight of her father's eyes struck a chill into her
own heart.

But he was her father--and her mother had tried, in spite of all, to
hide or condone his faults; and more than once before she died, had
made Kate promise to hunt him up and go to him. What the timid girl
dreaded most was finding another woman installed in his household--in
which case she meant to make her stay in the West very short. But
every hour lessened these fears and as he himself gradually thawed a
little, Kate took courage.

The breakfast went fast. Platters were passed without ceremony or
delay. Her father and Bradley ate as Kate had never seen men eat; only
her amazement could keep pace with their quiet but unremitting efforts
to clean up everything in sight. There was little mastication but much
knife and fork work, with free libation of coffee; and Belle, Kate
noticed, while somewhat left behind by the men, paid strict attention
to the business in hand.

Conversation naturally lagged; but what took place had its surprise for
Kate. Doubleday asked a few questions of Belle--everybody seemed to
know everybody else--and learning she was headed for the Reservation,
possibly to teach school, hired her on the spot away from the job, to
go back to his eating-house at Sleepy Cat Junction. No sooner was this
arranged, and Bradley told to take her luggage off the stage, than a
diversion occurred.

A horseman dashed up outside and presently strode into the room. He
was tall and well put together; not quite as straight as an arrow, but
straight, and not ungraceful in his height. This was Harry Van Horn, a
neighboring cattleman, and he wore the ranchman's rig, including the
broad hat and the revolver slung at his hip. But everything about the
rig was fresh and natty, in the sunshine. He looked alert. His step
was clean and springy as he crossed the room, and his voice not
unpleasant as he briskly greeted Doubleday and looked keenly at his
guests--last and longest at