y soon. I'd have been over before, but I've been
sort of busy."

"We've been a-hopin' you'd come," answered Hagar. And with another smile
at Ruth she stepped off the porch and mounted her pony.

Randerson went directly to his room, and Ruth stood for a long time at
the door, watching Hagar as she rode her pony over the plains. There was
a queer sensation of resentment in her breast over this exhibition of
friendship; she had never thought of them knowing each other. She smiled
after a while, however, telling herself that it was nothing to her. But
the next time that she saw Hagar she ascertained her age. It was
seventeen.

The outfit came in the next morning--fourteen punchers, the horse-wrangler
having trouble as usual with the _remuda_, the cook, Chavis, and Pickett.
They veered the herd toward the river and drove it past the ranchhouse and
into a grass level that stretched for miles. It was near noon when the
chuck wagon came to a halt near the bunkhouse door, and from the porch of
her house Ruth witnessed a scene that she had been anticipating since her
first day in the West--a group of cowboys at play.

Did these men of the plains know that their new boss had been wanting to
see them in their unrestrained moments? They acted like boys--more
mischievous than boys in their most frolicsome moods. Their movements
were grotesque, their gestures extravagant, their talk high-pitched and
flavored with a dialect that Ruth had never heard. They were "showing
off"; the girl knew that. But she also knew that in their actions was
much of earnestness, that an excess of vigor filled them. They were like
their horses which now unleashed in the corral were running, neighing,
kicking up their heels in their momentary delight of freedom.

The girl understood and sympathized with them, but she caught a glimpse
of Chavis and Pickett, sitting close together on a bench at the front of
the messhouse, talking seriously, and a cloud came over her face. These
two men were not light-hearted as the others. What was the reason? When
she went into the house a few minutes later, a premonition of impending
trouble assailed her and would not be dismissed.

She helped Aunt Martha in the kitchen. Uncle Jepson had gone
away--"nosin' around," he had said; Masten had ridden away toward the
river some time before--he had seemed to ride toward the break in the
canyon which led to the Catherson cabin; she did not know where Randerson
had gone--had no