said Dave, checking his vocabulary in the nick
of time. "Once they begin to give trouble you might's well knock 'em
on the head."

"But it's cruel," she protested. "Just to kill it because it's hurt."

"I don't know about the cruel," he answered. "You see, they're all
raised, every one of 'em, to be killed, anyway. Jus' like people, I
guess. Sooner or later. But if your heart's set on this little
crittur, we'll save it's long as we can."

So the calf was taken home and became Irene's special care. The mother
was captured and tied up in the corral, and the calf, although lame,
began to thrive and wax strong. It would gallop in its ungainly way
about the yard, in its exuberation of youthful innocence, while the
mother pined for the latest scandal from the great fields over the
hills.

"Brownie, we'll call it," said Irene, "on account of its colour."

"All right," said Dave, "on account of your sweater. That'll sort o'
show the connection."

So this night she rubbed its nose, and scratched its forehead, and then
reproved its affection, which had a habit of running to extremes. And
the mother cow mooed from the corral, and Brownie forgot his
benefactress and ambled away at the call of the blood.

"Well, you youngsters must have this country pretty well explored,"
said Dr. Hardy, as they entered the house. "Where was it today: the
prairies, the foothills, or the real fellows behind?"

"The canyon, up the river," said Irene, drawing off her sweater.
"What's the eats? Gee, I'm hungry. Getting pretty supple, Daddykins,
aren't you?"

"Yes, an' I'm sorry for it, Miss," said the old rancher. "Not wishin'
him any harm, or you neither. We was jus' talkin' it over, an' your
father thinks he's spry enough for the road again. Ain't ever goin' to
be like it use to be after he's gone, an' you."

So the afternoon's conversations in the canyon and the cabin had been
on the same theme, although prompted by very different emotions. Yet
the girl wondered whether the loneliness in the old man's heart, which
cried out to his own sex, might not bear some relationship to a
strange, new sense she herself was experiencing; a sense which reminded
her that she was incomplete--and alone. And it called across the
barrier of sex for completion.

"We'll be sorry to go," said the doctor. "That's what I've been saying
all day, and thinking, too. If misfortunes can be lucky, ours was one
of that kind. I don't know when I'