"Oh, you don't know
how glad--yet."

She called Jose to take Tripp's mount and then led the way into the
great living-room where deep cushions and leather chairs made for
comfort.

"I'll give you time to draw a second breath," she told him, forcing
into her tone a lightness which she did not quite feel, even though a
surge of satisfaction had warmed her at the first thud of his horse's
hoofs. "Then we'll talk."

She switched on the lights and turned to look at Tripp. He was the
same little old Doc Tripp, she noted. His wiry body scarcely bigger
than a boy's of fourteen, he was a man of fifty whose face, like his
body, suggested the boy with bright, eager eyes and a frank, friendly
smile.

"Prettier than ever, eh, Judy?" Tripp cocked his head to one side and
gave his unqualified approval of the slim, supple body, and superb
carriage of this girl of the mountains, warming to the vivid, vital
beauty of the rosy face. "Been driving those cow-college boys down at
Berkeley plumb crazy, I'll bet a prize colt!"

Judith laughed at him, watched his slight form disappear in the wide
arms of a chair which seemed fairly to smother him in its embrace.
Then from her own nook by the fireplace she opened her heart to him:

"It's not just that Trevors has crippled me by taking all of my milkers
away; not just that he has come near doing I don't know how much harm
in having Crowdy turn those calves with the lung-worm out into the
fields with the others; not just that during the last few months, he
has lost money for us right and left; not just that Benny, the cook,
has tried to fire the range."

"What's that last?" said Tripp quickly. "Tried to smoke you out, huh?"

She told him briefly. How she had first seen the smoke as she came
back to the ranch-house; how she had sent Jose on the run to get some
of the other hands to see that the fire did not spread; how, a little
while ago, Carson, the cattle foreman, had come in and assured her that
the damage was negligible.

"It was just a brush fire," said Judith. "Thank Heaven, things are
pretty green yet. Carson says it might have been lighted by Benny,
who, it seems, is one of Trevors's hirelings and not above this sort of
thing; or it might have been accidentally started by some careless
hunter. Anyway, and that's enough for me, the fire broke out close to
the trail that Benny travelled on his way to the Western Lumber camp.
But it isn't just these things which have s