ightly in at the bed's-head window, a
cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and his father, a little
heavier, a little grayer, but with the same ruggedly strong face and
kindly eyes, was standing at his bedside.

"Father!"--and "Evan, boy!" were the simple words of greeting; but the
mighty hand-grip which went with them was for the younger man a
confirmation of the filial hope and a heart-warming promise for the
future. Following instantly, there came a rush of mingled emotions: of
astoundment that he had recognized no familiar landmark in the midnight
faring through the hills or on the approach to the home of his
childhood; of something akin to keen regret that the old had given place
so thoroughly and completely to the new; of a feeling bordering on
chagrin that he had been surprised into accepting the hospitable
advances of a woman whom he had been intending to avoid, and for whom he
had hitherto cherished--and meant to cherish--a settled aversion.

But at the hand-gripping moment there was no time for a nice weighing of
emotions. He was in his father's house; the home-coming, some phases of
which he had vaguely dreaded, was a fact accomplished, and the new
life--the life which must be lived without Patricia--was fairly begun.
Also, there were many arrears to be brought up.

"Intuition, on the manward side of it at least, doesn't go," he was
saying with half-boyish candor. "I was awake last night when you drove
home in the motor, and I looked out of the window and saw you as you
came up the steps. According to the psychics, there ought to have been
some inward stirrings of recognition, but there weren't--not a single
thrill. Did the little--er--did Mrs. Blount tell you that I was here?"

"She did so; but she couldn't tell me much more. Say, son, how on top of
earth did you happen to blow in at midnight, with Jack Barto for your
herd leader?"

"It's a fairy tale, and you won't believe it--of a Blount," was the
laughing reply. "I left Boston Monday, and should have reached the
capital last night. But my train was laid out by a yard wreck at Twin
Buttes just before dark, and I left it and took to the hills--horseback.
Don't ask me why I did such a thing as that; I can only say that the
smell of the sage-brush got into my blood and I simply had to do it."

The old cattle-king was standing with his feet planted wide apart and
his hands deep in his pockets. "You hired a horse!" he chuckled, with
the humorous wrink