playing
close to the table, Lee, close! I have a little money in the bank,
enough to run along for two or three months, that's all. I said that
dad left no cash. I didn't mention his insurance." Her eyes grew
suddenly wet but she did not avert them from Lee's face, going on
quietly: "That was ten thousand dollars. Close to seven thousand had
to go for his current obligations. I have about two thousand to run
on."

"Close hauled," grunted Lee. And to himself, he remarked as he had
remarked once before: "She's got her sand."

Quite naturally Bud Lee thought swiftly of his horses. He had told
Trevors that he wanted to make no sale for at least six months. Given
until then--if Judith could make a go of it without forcing a
sale--he'd show her the way to at least seven or eight thousand, with a
good percentage of clear profit.

"To begin with," Judith's voice interrupted his musings, "I am going to
have trouble with Carson. I admit that he's an exceptionally good
cattle foreman; I admit, too, that he has his limitations. He is of
the old school, and has got to learn something! Already he has his
weather-eye cocked for the lean season; he'll be coming to me in August
or September, telling me I've got to begin selling. That's the way
they all do! And the result is that beef cattle drop and the market
clogs with them. What I am going to do is make Carson start in buying
then. Oh, he'll buck like one of his own red bay steers but he'll buy!"

"We're pretty well stocked up," Lee offered gently. "Turning the hills
over to the hogs makes a difference, too. We're going to be short of
feed long before September is over."

"Short of range feed, yes," she retorted warmly. "But we're going to
put our trust in our silos, Lee, and make them do such work for us as
they have never done before. Then, when other folks are forced to sell
off for what they can get, we'll hold on and buy. We won't sell before
December or January, when the market is up."

He shook his head. Though not of the old school which had produced
Carson, still he put little faith in those tall towers into which
alfalfa and Indian corn were fed to make lush fodder.

"I don't know a whole lot about silos," he admitted.

"Neither does Carson," said Judith. "He looks at such things as silos
and milking-machines and tractors and fences even as the old Indians
must have looked at the inroads of the white men. But, do you know
where he has been