ne," said Hetty. "Are you astonished?"

"I am content," said Clavering. "Why do you ask me?"

"Well," said Hetty naively, "I fancied you must have seen my father on the
prairie, and could have stopped him if you had wanted to."

There was a little flash in Clavering's dark eyes that was very eloquent.
"The fact is, I did. Still, I was afraid he would want to take me along
with him."

Hetty laughed. "I am growing up," she said. "Three years ago you wouldn't
have wasted those speeches on me. Well, you can sit down and talk to
Flora."

Clavering did as he was bidden. "It's a time-honoured question," he said.
"How do you like this country?"

"There's something in its bigness that gets hold of one," said Miss
Schuyler. "One feels free out here on these wide levels in the wind and
sun."

Clavering nodded, and Flora Schuyler fancied from his alertness that he
had been waiting for an opportunity. "It would be wise to enjoy it while
you can," he said. "In another year or two the freedom may be gone, and
the prairie shut off in little squares by wire fences. Then one will be
permitted to ride along a trail between rows of squalid homesteads flanked
by piles of old boots and provision-cans. We will have exchanged the
stockrider for the slouching farmer with a swarm of unkempt children and a
slatternly, scolding wife then."

"You believe that will come about?" asked Miss Schuyler, giving him the
lead she felt he was waiting for.

Clavering looked thoughtful. "It would never come if we stood loyally
together, but--and it is painful to admit it--one or two of our people
seem quite willing to destroy their friends to gain cheap popularity by
truckling to the rabble. Of course, we could spare those men quite well,
but they know our weak points, and can do a good deal of harm by betraying
them."

"Now," said Hetty, with a sparkle in her eyes, "you know quite well that
if some of them are mistaken they will do nothing mean. Can't they have
their notions and be straight men?"

"It is quite difficult to believe it," said Clavering. "I will tell you
what one or two of them did. There was trouble down at Gordon's place
fifty miles west, and his cow-boys whipped off a band of Dutchmen who
wanted to pull his fences down. Well, they came back a night or two later
with a mob of Americans, and laid hands on the homestead. We are proud of
the respect we pay women in this country, Miss Schuyler, but that night
Mrs. Gordon's and her da