g abstractedly at the
beacon, her fingers smoothing her snowy apron the while, she was
thinking thus to herself: "Perhaps father is right. If that Prairie Star
were only at Vancouver or Winnipeg instead of here, our Val could be
something, more than a prairie-rider. He'd have been different, if
father hadn't started this tavern business. Not that our Val is bad. He
isn't; but if he had money he could buy a ranch,--or something."

Our Val, as Jen and her father called him, was a lad of twenty-two,
one year younger than Jen. He was prairie-rider, cattle-dealer, scout,
cowboy, happy-go-lucky vagrant,--a splendid Bohemian of the plains. As
Jen said, he was not bad; but he had a fiery, wandering spirit, touched
withal by the sunniest humour. He had never known any curb but Jen's
love and care. That had kept him within bounds so far. All men of the
prairie spoke well of him. The great new lands have codes and standards
of morals quite their own. One enthusiastic admirer of this youth
said, in Jen's hearing, "He's a Christian--Val Galbraith!" That was
the western way of announcing a man as having great civic and social
virtues. Perhaps the respect for Val Galbraith was deepened by the
fact that there was no broncho or cayuse that he could not tame to the
saddle.

Jen turned her face from the flame and looked away from the oasis of
warmth it made, to where the light shaded away into darkness, a darkness
that was unbroken for many a score of miles to the north and west. She
sighed deeply and drew herself up with an aggressive motion as though
she was freeing herself of something. So she was. She was trying to
shake off a feeling of oppression. Ten minutes ago the gaslighted house
behind her had seemed like a prison. She felt that she must have air,
space, and freedom.

She would have liked a long ride on the buffalo-track. That, she felt,
would clear her mind. She was no romantic creature out of her sphere, no
exotic. She was country-born and bred, and her blood had been charged
by a prairie instinct passing through three generations. She was part
of this life. Her mind was free and strong, and her body was free and
healthy. While that freedom and health was genial, it revolted against
what was gross or irregular. She loved horses and dogs, she liked to
take a gun and ride away to the Poplar Hills in search of game, she
found pleasure in visiting the Indian Reservation, and talking to
Sun-in-the-North, the only good Indian ch