like to roll my own 'cigareet'?"

Argyl clapped her hands, laughing with her father.

"I told you so, daddy!" she cried, merrily. "Didn't I say that Mr.
Conniston was born to be a good cow-puncher!"

"And I'm half persuaded that you are right, Argyl," came from behind
the dense cloud of cigar-smoke. "But you haven't told us how you like
the work, Conniston."

"If you had asked me a week ago I should have had to ask to be excused
from trying to tell you in the presence of ladies. I would have quit
if I hadn't been too much of a coward. But now--"

"Now?" asked Argyl, quickly.

And it was to her that he made his answer, not to her father.

"Now I like it. And I am going to stick--unless I get fired for
incompetency!"

"I like that," said Mr. Crawford, slowly. "Yes, I like that. I was
afraid that it was rather too much for you. It's hard work, Conniston,
and long hours and little pay. But Brayley tells me that you have the
makings of a rattling good cow-hand."

"Thank you, sir. It was very decent of Brayley."

"I ought not to mix business into a social call, I know, but I want to
tell you personally that I am very much pleased with the way you are
tucking in. You asked if any one needed a good man the day you came.
We all do. I do. Why, I always want more of them than I can find. A
young man like you, with your advantages, your education--there are
all kinds of opportunities. Yes, right with me. The West is the place
for young men--provided simply that they are men! That's as true
to-day as it was in forty-nine. And truer. Opportunities are greater,
the need of men is more urgent. Right now, right to-day, I am looking
for a man, a young man, who knows a thing or two about engineering,
who can build bridges and cut irrigation ditches and save me money
doing it." He threw out his hands. "And I can't get him!"

"Will you tell me about the position?" asked Conniston, with keen
interest in voice and eyes alike.

"Certainly. I am running four cattle-ranges, using close to eighty
thousand acres doing it, too. That, of course, you know. But that is
getting to be a side issue with me. I am doing something else which is
going to be a thousand times bigger--ten thousand times more worth
while. Have you been to Crawfordsville?"

"No. I have been within a couple of miles of it. I saw it one day from
Blue Ridge."

"Well, then you know something of it. It is in a valley ten miles long
which has always been one of the ri