he
cried.

"Guess you like to horseback pretty well," muttered Belle, casting
about for a solution of so surprising an attitude and unable to find
any other fault with her protegee.

"I'd rather ride than eat," declared Kate, youthfully exuberant.

"What about swimming?" inquired Belle, determined to fasten discontent
on her.

"I hate swimming."

"Well," grumbled her companion, defeated at every point, "Barb's got
plenty of horses." Kate did not like to hear her father called Barb,
but Belle would not call him anything else.

Back of the cottage, Doubleday had a small barn, where Henry--an
ex-cowboy--looked after Doubleday's driving horses. And the very first
pledge from her father that she was to be tolerated in the strange
household she had invaded in this far-away country, came to Kate when
he sent down for her use two saddle ponies. The fleeting suspicion of
loneliness that she would not confess even to herself, all vanished
when the ponies came: She could then ride to and from the ranch. And
when Henry failed to appear, Kate took care of her pets herself. After
her father told her they were really hers, she would hardly let Henry
himself lay a hand on them.

When the evenings grew tedious she would go down for supper with Belle
and sit with her in the small alcove off the office, where the two
could see and hear without being seen; and Belle's stories had no end.

The only feature of her situation that would not improve was her
father's aloofness. He seemed to try at times to thaw out but he
persistently congealed again. One evening he got in late from the
ranch, cold and wet, complaining of rheumatism. The driver went on
with the team to Sleepy Cat and Doubleday told Kate he would stay all
night. She had a good fire in the grate and made her father a toddy.

He sat with her before the fire late and talked for the first time
about his affairs, which seemed mostly money troubles.

Next morning he could hardly get out of bed, but he was set on going to
the ranch and Kate helped him to dress and got him a good breakfast,
with a cup of strong coffee. He softened enough to let her go up to
the ranch with him. She had already coaxed from him the furniture for
the spare room so she might spend the night there occasionally. Van
Horn had promised to teach her sometime how to use a rifle and to take
her out after antelope and Kate was keen for going. The next day her
father brought her the rifle fro