y Burkitt and one other dependable man
began perfecting their education, with an eye turned toward a
profitable sale in January.

Quinnion, perforce, was left undisturbed upon the sheep-ranch whither
Emmet Sawyer had followed him. Against Bud Lee's word that he had had
a hand at the trouble at the old cabin were the combined oaths of two
of the sheepmen that he had been with them at the time.

Hampton's guests, who had planned for a month at the ranch, stayed on.
But they would be leaving at the end of June. That is, Farris and
Rogers positively; the Langworthys, perhaps. The major was content
here, and to stay always and always, would be an unbounded joy--of
course, with little runs to the city for the opera season and for
shopping trips, and a great, jolly house-party now and then.

The only fly in Marcia's ointment was Hampton himself. She confessed
as much to Judith. She liked him, oh, ever so much! But was that
love? She yearned for a man who would thrill her through and through,
and Hampton didn't always do that. Just after his heroic capture of
the terrible Shorty, Marcia was thrilled to her heart's content. But
there were other days when Hampton was just Pollock Hampton. If it
could only be arranged so that she could stay on and on, with no day of
reckoning to come, no matrimonial ventures on the horizon . . .

"That's simple, my dear," Judith smiled at her. "When you get through
being Pollock Hampton's guest, you can be mine for a while."

Hampton was now a great puzzle to Mrs. Langworthy, and even an object
of her secret displeasure. Not that that displeasure ever went to the
limit of changing Mrs. Langworthy's plans. But she longed for the
right to talk to him as a mother should. For, seeking to emulate those
whom he so unstintedly admired, Bud Lee and Carson and the rest of the
hard-handed, quick-eyed men in the service of the ranch, Hampton was no
longer the careless, frankly inefficient youth who had escorted his
guests here. He went for days at a time unshaven, having other matters
to think of; he came to the table bringing with him the aroma of the
stables. He wore a pair of trousers as cylindrical in the leg as a
stove-pipe; over them he wore a pair of cheap blue overalls, with the
proper six-inch turn-up at the bottom to show the stovepipe trousers
underneath. The overalls got soiled, then dirty, then disgracefully
blotched with wagon grease and picturesque stains, and Hampton made