s much more dignified
and . . . and respectful."

"And you can handle your own suitors now," he had retorted. "More
artistically and with equal finality!"

Only a week ago out there in the orchard where now the sunlight lay in
golden splashes over the fruit trees, she and Red Reckless had bantered
each other as they strolled toward the house where Arthur was sitting
on the veranda with her mother, watching them. It was a sparkling
morning like to-day's, and they had spoken of the old school days
before Mr. Shandon sent his two sons to the East to school, of the time
when she was eight and he was fifteen and he had "licked" a boy whom
she did not like but who was stubborn in vowing that the little girl
should eat a red cheeked apple he had brought her. A week ago, and now
Arthur Shandon was dead and men were ready to believe that Wayne
Shandon had killed him.

She sat very still, while her mind wandered in many directions. The
old days rose up vividly bringing back the young faces of Arthur and
Wayne and Garth Conway,--they had all played Prisoner's Base and
Anti-over at the little white school house down in the valley. She
remembered the day when a letter came from Mr. Shandon summoning Arthur
and Wayne and Garth to the East, and how merry the boys had been over
it. She missed them dreadfully after they went away until vacation
came and her own father had taken her with him on a tour of inspection
to his four other ranches, up and down the State. For three years she
did not see the three boys, their letters had ceased, and she was well
on the way to forget her playfellows. And then, when she was twelve
and Wayne Shandon nineteen, he had come back.

He had run away. He had quarrelled with his father, and Arthur had
tried to show him that he was unreasonable. Then the boy's hot temper
had flashed out at his brother and finally at Garth Conway who had long
been accustomed to thinking as Arthur Shandon thought. So the youth,
in whom love of adventure and hatred of restraint were already marked
characteristics, had sold his books, the saddle pony which his father's
generosity had given him, his guns and fishing tackle, in fact
everything which he might sell even to his spare clothing, had caught a
night train and come West again.

Wanda's mother had tried to reason with the boy when he came to them,
laughing at the trick he had played his father, full of mockery of the
hidebound ways of cities, and had wante