nt; the cloudlets overhead faded from crimson to
mauve to blue to grey.

Transley tapped the ashes from his pipe and went to bed.

CHAPTER IV

"How about a ride over to the South Fork this afternoon, Zen?" said Y.D.
to his daughter the following morning. "I just want to make sure them
boys is hittin' the high spots. The grass is gettin' powerful dry an'
you can never tell what may happen."

"You're on," the girl replied across the breakfast table. Her mother
looked up sharply. She wondered if the prospect of another meeting with
Transley had anything to do with Zen's alacrity.

"I had hoped you would outgrow your slang, Zen," she remonstrated
gently. "Men like Mr. Transley are likely to judge your training by your
speech."

"I should worry. Slang is to language what feathers are to a hat--they
give it distinction, class. They lift it out of the drab commonplace."

"Still, I would not care to be dressed entirely in feathers," her mother
thrust quietly.

"Good for you, Mother!" the girl exclaimed, throwing an arm about her
neck and planking a firm kiss on her forehead. "That was a solar plexus.
Now I'll try to be good and wear a feather only here and there. But Mr.
Transley has nothing to do with it."

"Of course not," said Y.D. "Still, Transley is a man with snap in him.
That's why he's boss. So many of these ornery good-for-nothin's is
always wishin' they was boss, but they ain't willin' to pay the price.
It costs somethin' to get to the head of the herd--an' stay there."

"He seems firm on all fours," the girl agreed. "How do we travel, and
when?"

"Better take a democrat, I guess," her father said. "We can throw in
a tent and some bedding for you, as we'll maybe stay over a couple of
nights."

"The blue sky is tent enough for me," Zen protested, "and I can surely
rustle a blanket or two around the camp. Besides, I'll want a riding
horse to get around with there."

"You can run him beside the democrat," said her father. "You're gettin'
too big to go campin' promisc'us like when you was a kid."

"That's the penalty for growing up," Zen sighed. "All right, Dad. Say
two o'clock?"

The girl spent the morning helping her mother about the house, and
casting over in her mind the probable developments of the near future.
She would not have confessed outwardly to even a casual interest in
Transley, but inwardly she admitted that the promise of another meeting
with him gave zest to the prospect. Transle