clared, when she had made known her plan. "The
town's so full of scamps it looks like Rodeo Day, and most of 'em are
doing well. If they can make good, it seems like an honest firm could
do better."

"We'll be partners, dad. You run the insurance and I'll be the lease
hound."

"Say--" Tom's eyes brightened. "I'll put a desk right alongside of
mine--a little feller, just your size--and a nice lounge in the back
room, where you can lay down when you're tired. You been away so long
it seems like I can't have you close enough." Another thought presented
itself, and he manifested sudden excitement. "I tell you! I'll get a
new sign painted, too! 'Tom and Bob Parker. Real Estate and Insurance.
Oil Prop'ties and Leases.' _Gosh!_ It's a _great_ idea, son!" His smile
lingered, but a moment later there came into his eyes a half-regretful
light.

Barbara read his thought almost before he was aware of it, and, rising,
she laid her hand upon his shoulder. Wistfully she said, "I'm awfully
sorry, too, dad--"

"Eh?"

"--that I disappointed you so by not being a boy. But--it wasn't my
fault, and maybe I'll show you that a daughter can help as much as a
son."

CHAPTER IV

A year before this story opens the town of Ranger, Texas, consisted of
a weatherbeaten, run-down railroad station, a blacksmith shop, and a
hitching rail, town enough, incidentally, for the limited number of
people and the scanty amount of merchandise that passed through it.
Ranger lay in the dry belt--considered an almost entirely useless part
of the state--where killing droughts were not uncommon, and where for
months on end the low, flinty hills radiate heat like the rolls of a
steel mill. In such times even the steep, tortuous canyons dried out
and there was neither shade nor moisture in them. The few farms and
ranches round about were scattered widely, and life thereon was a grim
struggle against heartbreak, by reason of the gaunt, gray, ever-present
specter of the drought. Of late this particular region had proven
itself to be one of violent extremes, of extreme dryness during which
flowers failed to bloom, the grass shriveled and died, and even the
trees refused to put forth leaves; or, more rarely, of extreme wetness,
when the country was drowned beneath torrential rains. Sometimes,
during unusual winters, the heavens opened and spilled themselves,
choking the narrow watercourses, washing out roads and destroying
fields, changing the arid arroyos i