t would you do?"

There was a somewhat curious look in Miss Schuyler's blue eyes. "I think
if I had known a man like that one as long as you have done, I should
believe in him--whatever he did."

"Well," said Hetty gravely, "if you had, just as long as you could
remember, seen your father and his friends taking no pleasure, but working
every day, and putting most of every dollar they made back into the ranch,
you would find it quite difficult to believe that the man who meant to
take it from them now they were getting old and wanted to rest and enjoy
what they had worked for was doing good."

Flora Schuyler nodded. "Yes," she said, "I would. It's quite an old
trouble. There are two ways of looking at everything, and other folks have
had to worry over them right back to the beginning."

Then she suddenly tightened her grasp on the bridle, for the ringing of a
rifle rose, sharp and portentous, from beyond the rise. The colour faded
in her cheek, and Hetty leaned forward a trifle in her saddle, with lips
slightly parted, as though in strained expectancy. No sound now reached
them from beyond the low, white ridge that hemmed in their vision but a
faint drumming of hoofs. Then Flora Schuyler answered the question in her
companion's eyes.

"I think it was only a warning," she said.

She wheeled her horse and they rode on slowly, hearing nothing further,
until the Range rose from behind the big birch bluff. Torrance had
returned when they reached it, and Hetty found him in his office room.

"I met Larry on the prairie, and of course I talked to him," she said. "I
asked him why he had not been to the Range, and he seemed to think it
would be better if he did not come."

Torrance smiled drily. "Then I guess he showed quite commendable taste as
well as good sense. You are still decided not to go back to New York,
Hetty?"

"Yes," said the girl, with a little resolute nod. "You see, I can't help
being young and just a little good-looking, but I'm Miss Torrance of Cedar
all the time."

Torrance's face was usually grim, but it grew a trifle softer then.
"Hetty," he said, "they taught you a good many things I never heard of at
that Boston school, but I'm not sure you know that all trade and industry
is built upon just this fact: what a man has made and worked hard for is
his own. Would anyone put up houses or raise cattle if he thought his
neighbours could take them from him? Now there's going to be trouble over
that quest