e with the sheepmen?"

"Why, no!" answered Hardy innocently. "What made you ask?"

"Well, you wrote father you expected trouble--and--and you had that
big, long pistol when you came in yesterday. Now you can't deny
that!"

"I'm afraid you've had some Western ideas implanted in your bosom by
Kitty, Miss Lucy," protested Hardy. "We never shoot each other down
here. I carry that pistol for the moral effect--and it's necessary,
too, to protect these sheepmen against their own baser natures. You
see they're all armed, and if I should ride into their camp without a
gun and ask them to move they might be tempted to do something overt.
But as it is now, when Jeff and I begin to talk reason with them they
understand. No, _we're_ all right; it's the sheep-herders that have
all the trouble."

"Rufus Hardy," cried Miss Lucy indignantly, "if you mention those
sheep again until you are asked about them, I'll have you attended to.
Do you realize how far I have come to see your poems and hear you talk
the way you used to talk? And then to hear you go on in this way! I
thought at first that Mr. Creede was a nice man, but I am beginning to
change my opinion of him. But you have just got to be nice to me and
Kitty while we are here. I had so many things to tell you about your
father, and Tupper Browne, and The Circle, but you just sit around so
kind of close-mouthed and silent and never ask a question! Wouldn't
you like to know how your father is?" she asked.

"Why, yes," responded Hardy meekly. "Have you seen him lately?"

"I saw him just before we came away. He is dreadfully lonely, I know,
but he wouldn't send any message. He never says _anything_ when I tell
him what you are doing, just sits and twists his mustache and listens;
but I could tell by the way he said good-bye that he was glad I was
coming. I am sorry you can't agree--isn't there something you could do
to make him happier?"

Hardy looked up from his dish-washing with a slow smile.

"Which do you think is more important?" he asked, "for a man to please
his father or his best friend?"

Lucy suspected a trap and she made no reply.

"Did you ever quote any of my poetry to father?" inquired Hardy
casually. "No? Then please don't. But I'll bet if you told him I was
catching wild horses, or talking reason to these Mexican herders,
you'd have the old man coming. He's a fighter, my father, and if you
want to make him happy when you go back, tell him his son has just
ab