n anything for a grama-grass ranch which ought to turn
over a profit of ten or twelve thousand dollars in good cattle
years, and wouldn't lose much in bad ones. He expected to spend
about half his time out there with Ralph. "When I'm away," he
remarked genially, "you and Mahailey won't have so much to do.
You can devote yourselves to embroidery, so to speak."

"If Ralph is to live in Colorado, and you are to be away from
home half of the time, I don't see what is to become of this
place," murmured Mrs. Wheeler, still in the dark.

"Not necessary for you to see, Evangeline," her husband replied,
stretching his big frame until the rocking chair creaked under
him. "It will be Claude's business to look after that."

"Claude?" Mrs. Wheeler brushed a lock of hair back from her damp
forehead in vague alarm.

"Of course." He looked with twinkling eyes at his son's straight,
silent figure in the corner. "You've had about enough theology, I
presume? No ambition to be a preacher? This winter I mean to turn
the farm over to you and give you a chance to straighten things
out. You've been dissatisfied with the way the place is run for
some time, haven't you? Go ahead and put new blood into it. New
ideas, if you want to; I've no objection. They're expensive, but
let it go. You can fire Dan if you want, and get what help you
need."

Claude felt as if a trap had been sprung on him. He shaded his
eyes with his hand. "I don't think I'm competent to run the place
right," he said unsteadily.

"Well, you don't think I am either, Claude, so we're up against
it. It's always been my notion that the land was made for man,
just as it's old Dawson's that man was created to work the land.
I don't mind your siding with the Dawsons in this difference of
opinion, if you can get their results."

Mrs. Wheeler rose and slipped quickly from the room, feeling her
way down the dark staircase to the kitchen. It was dusky and
quiet there. Mahailey sat in a corner, hemming dish-towels by the
light of a smoky old brass lamp which was her own cherished
luminary. Mrs. Wheeler walked up and down the long room in soft,
silent agitation, both hands pressed tightly to her breast, where
there was a physical ache of sympathy for Claude.

She remembered kind Tom Wested. He had stayed over night with
them several times, and had come to them for consolation after
his wife died. It seemed to her that his decline in health and
loss of courage, Mr. Wheeler's fort