is country. You see he has always had to work hard for a
living, and never had time to teach himself the nice little ways you
folks have in England. He's just a big rough rancher who has fought
pretty toughly for his own hand, and that's apt to take the gentleness
out of a man, and make him what you would call coarse and brutal."

The girl seemed to shiver. "Is there nothing to say on the other
side?" she said.

"Well," said the teamster reflectively, "I think he means well, and
never took more than his right from any man, while there are people who
would as soon have his word as its value in dollar bills."

"You seem to know him suspiciously well," said Miss Deringham sharply.

"I do," said Harry simply, as he stood up. "Anyway, as well as most
people. You know where I fixed your bed up, sir, when you want to turn
in. There's nothing in this bush, miss, that would hurt you."

He stepped back into the shadows, and the camp seemed lonely without
him, while as the girl shivered in the cold wind, Deringham glanced at
her curiously.

"Well?" he said.

Then the red crept into his daughter's cheeks and a sparkle Into her
eyes. "It will take a very long time to get used to. I could almost
hate the man," she said,

"It is hard to lose one's inheritance," said Deringham dryly.

The flush grew a trifle plainer in his daughter's cheek. "It is not
the value of the land," she said. "But think of such a man, a brutal,
cattle-driving boor, ruling at Carnaby where my mother lived."

"Still," said Deringham, "the value is not inconsiderable, and Carnaby
would have been yours some day."

The girl made a gesture of impatience. "That is not my complaint," she
said. "I could have let it pass without bitterness to an Englishman
who would have lived in it in accordance with the traditions of his
race, but this man----"

"Will no doubt cut down the timber, open the fireclay pits, and
desecrate the park with brickworks," he said. "That is, unless he has
convivial proclivities, and, finding himself ostracized, fills Carnaby
with turf and billiard-room blacklegs."

The girl ground her heel viciously into the mould. "Have you any
reason for going into these details?" she said.

Deringham watched her closely. "I only wished you to understand the
position, and to remember that you and I are both to some extent at the
mercy of our rancher kinsman," he said.

He left her presently to seek the couch the teamster had pre