do her in the end,"
Mackenzie said.

"I'll drop you off over there; you can stay in camp tonight with
Charley and Joan. Tomorrow I'll come back and take you out to Dad
Frazer's camp, and you can begin your schoolin' for the makin' of a
master. But begin early to discourage her, John; begin at her early,
lad."

CHAPTER VI

EYES IN THE FIRELIGHT

"They call it the lonesomeness here," said Joan, her voice weary as
with the weight of the day. "People shoot themselves when they get it
bad--green sheepherders and farmers that come in here to try to plow
up the range."

"Crazy guys," said Charley, contemptuously, chin in his hands where he
stretched full length on his belly beside the embers of the supper
fire.

"Homesick," said Mackenzie, understandingly. "I've heard it's one of
the worst of all diseases. It defeats armies sometimes, so you can't
blame a lone sheepherder if he loses his mind on account of it."

"Huh!" said Charley, no sympathy in him for such weakness at all.

"I guess not," Joan admitted, thoughtfully. "I was brought up here,
it's home to me. Maybe I'd get the lonesomeness if I was to go away."

"You sure would, kid," said Charley, with comfortable finality.

"But I want to go, just the same," Joan declared, a certain defiance
in her tone, as if in defense of a question often disputed between
herself and Charley.

"You think you do," said Charley, "but you'd hit the high places
comin' back home. Ain't that right, Mr. Mackenzie?"

"I think there's something to it," Mackenzie allowed.

"Maybe I would," Joan yielded, "but as soon as my share in the sheep
figures up enough you'll see me hittin' the breeze for Chicago. I want
to see the picture galleries and libraries."

"I'd like to go through the mail-order house we get our things from up
there," Charley said. "The catalogue says it covers seventeen acres!"

Mackenzie was camping with them for the night on his way to Dad
Frazer's range, according to Tim Sullivan's plan. Long since they had
finished supper; the sheep were quiet below them on the hillside. The
silence of the sheeplands, almost oppressive in its weight, lay around
them so complete and unbroken that Mackenzie fancied he could hear the
stars snap as they sparkled. He smiled to himself at the fancy, face
turned up to the deep serenity of the heavens. Charley blew the
embers, stirring them with a brush of sage.

"The lonesomeness," said Mackenzie, with a curious dwelling o