ourse, I know--only it's so much
easier to go round another way so you can't see what you don't want to.
Larry, I'm sorry."

Grant's voice quivered. "The only thing you ever do wrong, Hetty, is to
forget to think now and then; and by and by you will find somebody who is
good enough to think for you."

The girl smiled. "He would have to be very patient, and the trouble is
that if he was clever enough to do the thinking he wouldn't have the least
belief in me. You are the only man, Larry, who could see people's
meannesses and still have faith in them."

"I am a blunderer who has taken up a contract that's too big for him,"
Grant said gravely. "I have never told anyone else, Hetty, but there are
times now and then when, knowing the kind of man I am, I get 'most sick
with fear. All the poor men in this district are looking to me, and,
though I lie awake at night, I can't see how I'm going to help them when
one trace of passion would let loose anarchy. It's only right they're
wanting, that is, most of the Dutchmen and the Americans--but there's the
mad red rabble behind them, and the bitter rage of hard men who have been
trampled on, to hold in. It's a crushing weight we who hold the reins have
got to carry. Still, we were made only plain farmer men, and I guess we're
not going to be saddled with more than we can bear."

He had spoken solemnly from the depths of his nature, and all that was
good in the girl responded.

"Larry," she said softly, "while you feel just that I think you can't go
wrong. It is what is right we are both wanting, and--though I don't know
how--I feel we will get it by and by, and then it will be the best thing
for homestead-boys and cattle-barons. When that time comes we will be glad
there were white men who took up their load and worried through, and when
this trouble's worked out and over there will be nothing to stop us being
good friends again."

"Is that quite out of the question now?"

"Yes," said Hetty simply. "I am sorry, but, Larry, can't you understand?
You are leading the homestead-boys, and my father the cattle-barons. First
of all I've got to be a dutiful daughter."

"Of course," he agreed. "Well, it can't last for ever, and we can only do
the best we can. Other folks had the same trouble when the boys in Sumter
fired the starting gun--North and South at each other's throats, and both
Americans!"

Hetty decided that she had gone sufficiently far, and turned in her
saddle. "What