62
XXIV The Stock Train 272
XXV Cheyne Relieves His Feelings 286
XXVI Larry's Reward 296
XXVII Clavering's Last Card 309
XXVIII Larry Rides to Cedar 321
XXIX Hetty Decides 331
XXX Larry's Wedding Day 343
XXXI Torrance Rides Away 355

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Come Down!" _Facing page_ 48

"She'll shoot me before she means to." 66

A white face and shadowy head, from which
the fur cap had fallen. 114

"Aren't you a trifle late?" 160

There was a note in her voice that set the man's
heart beating furiously. 268

A fierce white frothing about him. _Frontispiece_

THE CATTLE-BARON'S DAUGHTER

I

THE PORTENT

The hot weather had come suddenly, at least a month earlier than usual,
and New York lay baking under a scorching sun when Miss Hetty Torrance sat
in the coolest corner of the Grand Central Depot she could find. It was by
her own wish she had spent the afternoon in the city unattended, for Miss
Torrance was a self-reliant young woman; but it was fate and the
irregularity of the little gold watch, which had been her dead mother's
gift, that brought her to the depot at least a quarter of an hour too
soon. But she was not wholly sorry, for she had desired more solitude and
time for reflection than she found in the noisy city, where a visit to an
eminent modiste had occupied most of her leisure. There was, she had
reasons for surmising, a decision of some moment to be made that night,
and as yet she was no nearer arriving at it than she had been when the
little note then in her pocket had been handed her.

Still, it was not the note she took out when she found a seat apart from
the hurrying crowd, but a letter from her father, Torrance, the
Cattle-Baron, of Cedar Range. It was terse and to the point, as usual, and
a little smile crept into the girl's face as she read.

"Your letter to hand, and so long as you have a good time don't worry
about the bills. You'll find another five hundred dollars at the bank when
you want them. Thank God, I can give my daughter what her mother should
have had. Two years since I've seen my little girl, and now it seems that
somebody else is wanting her! Well, we were