Antonio left the
corral gate open I never thought to speak to him. And Ruggles's
Dynamo--they've let him run away again--just walked in and butted open
the orchard bars and he's loose now eating the prune trees!"

"Edward, you must go right over!" cried Mrs. Tiffany; and then stopped
on the thought of an old man trying to subdue a Jersey bull,
good-natured though that bull might be. The same thought struck Judge
Tiffany. Antonio, the Portuguese, lolling half-asleep against the
dashboard, was worse than useless; the nearest visible help was a
Chinaman, incompetent against horned cattle, and another Portuguese,
and--

"Let me corral your bull," said the easy, thrilling voice of the boy
who stood beside the step-ladder. Judge Tiffany turned in reproof, his
wife in annoyance, the girl in some surprise. The youth was already
walking toward the buckboard.

"I guess that lets you out, John," he said to the Portuguese.

Something in him, the same quality which had made the Judge smile back
through his rebuke concerning the green apricots, held them all. The
Judge spoke first:

"Very well, Mr.--"

"Chester--Bertram Chester," said the youth, throwing his
self-introduction straight at the girl.

"Mr. Chester is one of the University boys who are picking for us this
summer," said Judge Tiffany.

"Yes?" replied the girl in a balanced, incurious tone. Her eyes
followed Mr. Chester, while he took the reins from the deposed Antonio
and waited for her to mount the buckboard. As she sprang up, after a
final caution from Mrs. Tiffany, she perceived that he was going to
"help her in." With a motion both quick and slight, she evaded his
hand and sprang to the seat unaided.

Mr. Chester slapped the reins, clucked to the horse, and bent his gaze
down upon the girl. He had seated himself all too close. She crowded
herself against the iron seat-rail. It annoyed her a little; it
embarrassed her still more. She was slightly relieved when he made a
beginning of conversation.

"So you're Judge Tiffany's niece, the girl who runs her ranch herself.
I've heard heaps about you."

"Yes?" Embarrassment came back with the sound of her own voice. She
could talk to Judge Tiffany or to any man of Judge Tiffany's age, but
with her male contemporaries she felt always this same constraint. And
this young man was looking on her insistently, as though demanding
answers.

"They say you're one of the smartest ranchers in these parts," he went
on.