oon learned that he was wax beneath her palm--that the touch of a
finger on his arm made him uneasy of eye and trembling of limb. It
amused her to experiment with him--to command him, to demand speech of
him when he was most angry and disgusted with the life he was living.
That he despised her father and mother she did not know, but that he was
sick of the cowboys and their "clack" she did know, and she understood
quite as well as if he had already told her that she alone kept him from
returning at once to Denver to try some other manner of earning a
living. This realization gave her pride and joy.

She had but one jealousy--he admired and trusted Mrs. Baker and
occasionally rode over there to talk with her, and Fan could not
understand that he sought intellectual refuge from the mental squalor of
the Blondells, but she perceived a difference in his glance on his
return. Mrs. Baker, being a keen-sighted, practical little woman, soon
fell upon the plainest kind of speech with the young Englishman.

"This is no place for you," she defiantly said. "The rest of us are all
more or less born to the plains and farm-life, but you're not; you're
just 'sagging,' that's all. You're getting deeper into the slough all
the time."

"Quite right," he answered, "but I don't know what else I can do. I have
no trade--I know nothing of any art or profession, and my brother is
quite content to pay my way so long as he thinks I'm on a ranch, and in
the way of learning the business."

She, with her clear eyes searching his soul, replied: "The longer you
stay the more difficult it will be to break away. Don't you see that?
You're in danger of being fastened here forever."

He knew what she meant, and his thin face flushed. "I know it and I am
going to ask Starr to give me a place here with you, and I'm about to
write my brother stating full reasons for the change. He might advance
me enough to buy into Starr's herd."

She considered this. "I'll take the matter up with Starr," she replied,
after a pause. "Meanwhile, you can come over and stay as a visitor as
long as you please--but don't bring Fan," she added, sharply. "I can't
stand slatterns, and you must cut loose from her once for all."

Again he flushed. "I understand--but it isn't easy. Fan has been mighty
good to me; life would have been intolerable over there but for her."

"I should think life would have been intolerable _with_ her," Mrs. Baker
answered, with darkening brow, an