o
trouble you, but my horse has picked up a nail. If I could borrow a
pair of pliers or shoeing pincers----"

"Of course. Father is at the stable. I'll show you."

Donald McCrae, just in from a day of irrigating, shook hands, and took
the horse's hoof between his knees with the certainty of a farrier.

"Right bang to the head," he observed, as he tried for a grip. "I'll
have it in a minute. Hold him, now! Steady, boy! There you are!"

With a twist and an outward wrench he held up the nail between the tips
of the pincers. He released the hoof, but the horse held it clear of
the ground.

"Sore," said McCrae. "A nasty brute of a piece of wire, too. That's a
mighty lame cayuse. You won't ride him for a week--maybe two."

"He'll have to take me to camp, or I'll have to take him."

"And that might lame him for two months. Leave him here. I'll poultice
the foot if it needs it. You stay and have supper. Afterward we'll
drive you over."

Farwell demurred, surprised. He considered all the ranchers to be
leagued against the railway, and in that he was not far wrong. In his
mind it followed as a corollary that they were also hostile to him, as
he was hostile to them.

"Thanks! It's very good of you, but, under the circumstances--you
understand what I mean."

"You needn't feel that way," McCrae returned. "When this country was
just country, and no more, a white man was always welcome to my fire,
my blankets, and my grub, when I had it. It's no different now, at
Talapus. You're welcome to what we have--while we have it. There's no
quarrel between us that I know of."

"No, of course not," said Farwell, not quite at his ease. If McCrae
chose to put it on that footing he could not reasonably object. "Well,
thanks very much. I'll be glad to accept your offer."

An excellent meal put him in better humour. By nature he was a hard
man, who took life seriously, engrossed in his profession. He led a
nomadic existence, moved continually from one piece of work to another,
his temporary habitations ranging from modern hotels to dog tents and
shacks. In all the world there was no spot that he could call home; and
there was no one who cared a button whether he came or went. His
glimpses of other men's homes were rare and fleeting, and he was apt to
thank Heaven that he was not thus tied down.

But the atmosphere of the ranch appealed to him. Its people were not
silly folk, babbling of trivial things which he neither understood nor