on the Cimarron. Him and
another feller fell out over----"

"Have you heard from Nettie lately?" Lambert broke in, not caring to
hear the story of the man who was shot on the Cimarron, or his
subsequent miscalculations on the state of his lights.

Taterleg rolled his eyes to look at him, not turning his head, reproach
in the glance, mild reproof. But he let it pass in his good-natured way,
brightening to the subject nearest his heart.

"Four or five days ago."

"All right, is she?"

"Up and a-comin', fine as a fiddle."

"You'll be holdin' hands with her before the preacher in a little while
now."

"Inside of a week, Duke. My troubles is nearly all over."

"I don't know about that, but I hope it'll turn out that way."

They were on their way home from delivering the calves and the clean-up
of the herd to Pat Sullivan, some weeks after Lambert's fight at
Glendora. Lambert still showed the effects of his long confinement and
drain of his wounds in the paleness of his face. But he sat his saddle
as straight as ever, not much thinner, as far as the eye could weigh
him, nothing missing from him but the brown of his skin and the blood
they had drawn from him that day.

There was frost on the grass that morning, a foretaste of winter in the
sharp wind. The sky was gray with the threat of snow, the somber season
of hardship on the range was at hand. Lambert thought, as he read these
signs, that it would be a hard winter on livestock in that unsheltered
country, and was comfortable in mind over the profitable outcome of his
dealings for his employer.

As for himself, his great plans were at an end on the Bad Lands range.
The fight at Glendora had changed all that. The doctor had warned him
that he must not attempt another winter in the saddle with that tender
spot in his lung, his blood thinned down that way, his flesh soft from
being housebound for nearly six weeks. He advised a milder climate for
several months of recuperation, and was very grave in his advice.

So the sheep scheme was put aside. The cattle being sold, there was
nothing about the ranch that old Ananias could not do, and Lambert had
planned to turn his face again toward the West. He could not lie around
there in the bunkhouse and grow strong at Vesta's expense, although that
was what she expected him to do.

He had said nothing to her of his determination to go, for he had
wavered in it from day to day, finding it hard to tear himself away from