been there, and he had ridden a long way
to reach it that day. He was feeling comfortably tired after the
exposure to the bitter frost, and blinked drowsily at the young rancher
who sat opposite him across the stove. The latter, who had come out
some years earlier from the old country, was then reading a somewhat
ancient English newspaper.

"What has been going on here lately?" asked Courthorne.

The other man laughed. "Does anything ever happen in this place? One
would be almost thankful if a cyclone or waterspout came along, if it
were only to give the boys something to talk about. Still, one of the
girls here is going to get married. I'm not sure old man Clouston
finds it helps his trade quite as much as he fancied it would when he
fired his Chinamen and brought good-looking waitresses in. This is the
third of them who has married one of the boys and left him."

"What could he expect!" and Courthorne yawned. "Who's the man, and
have I seen the girl?"

"I don't think you have. So far as I remember, she came since you were
here last, and that must be quite a while ago. Nobody seems to know
where Clouston got her from, and she's by no means communicative about
her antecedents; but she's pretty enough for any man, and Potter is
greatly stuck on her. He sold out a week or two ago--got quite a pile
for the ranch, and I understand he's going back to the old country.
Any way, the girl has a catch. Potter's a straight man, and most of us
like him."

He turned over his paper with a little laugh. "It doesn't interest
you? Well, if you had lived out at Willow six years as I have you'd be
glad of anything to talk about, if it was only the affairs of one of
Clouston's waitresses."

Courthorne yawned again openly and took from his pocket a letter that
he had received the day before at another little town to which, in
accordance with directions given, it had been forwarded him. It was
from one of his whisky-running comrades and had somewhat puzzled him.

"There's about one hundred dollars due you, and we're willing to pay
up," it ran. "Still, now we hear you're going back east to the
Silverdale settlement it's quite likely you won't want them as much as
the rest of us do. It's supposed to be quite a big farm you have come
into."

Courthorne was a little troubled, as well as perplexed. He had
certainly not gone to Silverdale and had no notion of doing so, though
he had distant relatives there, while, so fa