fe and very keen about it, and
the moment he saw the Shoe-Bar he fell in love with it. But the war came,
and he had scarcely taken title to the place before he went off and
enlisted. Just before he sailed for France he sold the ranch to my father,
with the understanding that if he came back safely, Dad would turn it over
to him again. He felt, I suppose, how uncertain it all was and that money
in the bank would be easier for his--his heirs, than property."

She paused for an instant, her lips pressed tightly together. "He never
came back," she went on in a lower, slightly unsteady voice. "He--gave up
his life for those of us who stayed behind. After a little we left Chicago
and came here. I loved the place at once, and I've gone on caring for it
increasingly ever since. But back of everything there's always been a
sense of the tragedy, the injustice of it all. They never even found his
body. He was just--missing. And yet, when I came into that room, with his
things about just as he had left them when he went away, he seemed so
_real_,--I--I couldn't touch it. Somehow, it was all that was left of him.
And even though I'd never seen him, I felt as if I wanted to keep it that
way always in memory of a--a brave soldier, and a--man."

Her low voice ceased. With face averted, she stared in silence across the
brown, scorched prairie. Stratton, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and his
cheeks tinged with unwonted color, found it quite impossible to speak, and
for a space the stillness was broken only by the creak of saddle-leather
and the dull thud of horses' hoofs.

"It's mighty fine of you to feel like that," he said at length. "I'm sorry
if I gave you the idea I--I was--curious."

"But you would be, naturally. You see, the other boys all know." She
turned her head and looked at him. "I think we're all curious at times
about things which really don't concern us. I've even wondered once or
twice about you. You know you don't talk like the regulation
cow-puncher--quite."

Stratton laughed. "Oh, but I am," he assured her. "I suppose the war
rubbed off some of the accents, and of course I had a pretty good
education to start with. But I'm too keen about the country and the life
to ever want to do anything else."

Her face glowed. "It is wonderful," she agreed. "When I think of the years
I've wasted in cities! I couldn't ever go back. Even with all the
worries, this is a thousand times better. Ah! There they are ahead.
They're