that had come into the sheeplands in his day. Sheep people are not
fighting folks. They never have been since the world's beginning; they
never will be to the world's end. There is something in the peaceful
business of attending sheep, some appeal in their meekness and
passivity, that seems to tincture and curb the savage spirit that
dwells in the breast of man. Swan Carlson was one of the notorious
exceptions in that country. Even the cattlemen were afraid of him.

Joan advised against Mackenzie's expressed intention of returning to
Carlson's house to find out how badly he was hurt. It would be a
blessing to the country, she said, if it should turn out that Carlson
was killed. But Mackenzie had an uneasy feeling that it would be a
blessing he could not share. He was troubled over the thing, now that
the excitement of the fight had cooled out of him, thinking of the
blow he had given Carlson with that heavy piece of oak.

Perhaps the fellow was not dead, but hurt so badly that he would die
without surgical aid. It was the part of duty and humanity to go back
and see. He resolved to do this, keeping the resolution to himself.

Joan told him much of the sheep business, and much about the art of
running a big band over that sparse range, in which this green valley
lay like an oasis, a gladdening sight seldom to be met with among
those sulky hills. She said she hoped her father would find a place
for him, for the summer, at least.

"But I wouldn't like to see you shut yourself up in this country like
the rest of us are," she said, gazing off over the hills with wistful
eyes. "A man that knows enough to teach school oughtn't fool away his
time on sheep."

She was working toward her own emancipation, she told him, running
that band of two thousand sheep on shares for her father, just the
same as an ordinary herdsman. In three years she hoped her increase,
and share of the clip, would be worth ten thousand dollars, and then
she would sell out and go away.

"What would you want to leave a good business like this for?" he
asked, rather astonished at her cool calculation upon what she
believed to be freedom. "There's nothing out in what people call the
world that you could turn your hand to that would make you a third of
the money."

"I want to go away and get some education," she said.

"But you are educated, Miss Sullivan."

She turned a slow, reproachful look upon him, a shadow of sadness over
her wholesome young fa