ality, though we'd be mighty
sorry to have you and your husband leave."

The tears started into Genevieve's hazel eyes. "Mr. Knowles! how could
you think for a moment that I--that we--"

"Excuse me, ma'am!" he hastened to apologize. "I didn't mean to hurt
your feelings. You see, I'm kind of prejudiced along some lines. I've
been bred up to the Western idea that it isn't just etiquette to ask
about people's antecedents. Real Western, I mean. Our city folks are
nearly as bad as you Easterners over family trees. As if a child isn't
as much descended from its mother's maternal grandmother as from its
father's paternal grandfather!"

Genevieve smiled at this adroit diversion of the subject by the
seemingly simple Westerner, and replied: "My father's and mother's
parents were farm people. My husband worked his way up out of the
Chicago slums."

"He did?" The cowman could not conceal his astonishment. He looked
curiously into the lady's high-bred face. "Well, now, that sure is
something to be right proud of--not that I'd have exactly expected you
to think so. If you'll excuse me, ma'am, I'm more surprised at the way
you feel about it than that he was able to do such a big thing."

"No one is responsible for what he is born. But we are at least partly
entitled to the credit or discredit of what we become," she observed.

"That's good American doctrine, ma'am--Western American!" approved
Knowles.

"It should apply to women as well as men," she stated.

"It ought," he dryly replied, and he jerked up the head of his pawing
horse. "Here, you! I guess it's high time we were starting in, ma'am.
Kid may think he's to lay over at the ranch until morning. We want to
get him out here before dusk. I don't reckon there's any show of that
snake coming back tonight, but it's as well to be on the safe side."

He walked up the slope towards the others, unbuckling his cartridge
belt as he went.

"Sling on your saddle, honey," he called to his daughter.

The girl sprang up from beside Ashton and ran to fetch her own and
Genevieve's picketed ponies. Her father held out his belt and revolver
to the engineer.

"Here's my Colt's, Mr. Blake," he said. "I have another at home. You
won't need it, but I may as well leave it. We're going to lope in now,
so as to hustle Kid out to you before night. Just swap me that
yearling for my gun. It wouldn't seem natural not to be toting
something that can make a noise."

"Thomas never cries unless