had found the range covered with a fresh tracking snow which
precluded possibility of a raid and all hands had been summoned to the
home ranch for a two-day rest. Harris knew that cowhands, no matter
how loyal to the brand that pays them, are a restless lot and must have
their periodical fling to break the monotony of lonely days; so he had
provided food and drink in abundance. The frolic was over and the
hands back on the range. Harris sat with Billie before her fire.

"They'll be satisfied for another two months," he said. "Then we'll
have to call them in for another spree."

This evening conference before the fire had come to be a nightly
occurrence. Together they went over the details of the work
accomplished during the day and mapped out those for the next. From
outside came the crunch of hoofs and the screech of logs on the frozen
trail as the last mule team came down with its load.

Most of the logs had been skidded down and the men now worked in pairs,
erecting the cabins on each filing. The cedar posts had been hauled
and strung out along the prospective fence lines. The wagons, under
heavy guard, had made two trips to the railroad to freight in more
implements and supplies. Thousands of pounds of seed oats and alfalfa
seed were stored at the Three Bar along with sixty hundred of cement.

"Another two months and the cabins will be roofed and finished," Harris
said. "Then we'll be through till the frost is out of the ground.
We'll start building fence as soon as you can sink a post hole; and
we'll have time to break out another two hundred acres of ground before
time to seed it down."

The girl nodded without comment, content to leave him to his thoughts,
her mind pleasantly occupied with her own. For long her evenings had
been lonely but now she had come to look forward to the conferences
before the blazing logs. She had made no attempt to analyze the
reasons for the new contentment which had transformed her evenings,
formerly periods of drab reflections, into the most pleasant portion of
each day.

Harris gazed about the familiar room and wondered what the future held
out to him if he should be forced to spend his evenings alone after
having shared them for six months with the Three Bar girl. The weekly
letters still came from Deane. The girl valued Harris as a friend and
partner without apparent trace of more intimate regard. He wondered
which would prevail, the ties which bound her to th