visions in the town? I can
offer you something in exchange."

"No," said Torrance. "Do what suits you best. I can make no terms with
you. If it hadn't been for my foolishness in sending the boys off with the
cattle, very few of your friends would have got away from Cedar Range
to-night."

"I'll take my man away. I can thank you for that at least," was Grant's
answer.

He moved to the door and opened it, and three men came in. They did his
bidding, and all made way for them when they tramped out unsteadily with
their burden. Then, he turned once more to Torrance with his fur cap in
his hand.

"I am going now, sir, and it is hard to tell what may happen before we
meet again. We have each got a difficult row to hoe, and I want to leave
you on the best terms I can."

Torrance looked at him steadily, and Grant returned it with a curious
gravity, though there were fearless cattle-men at Cedar Range who did not
care to meet its owner's gaze when he regarded them in that fashion. With
a just perceptible gesture he directed the younger man's attention to the
red splashes on the floor.

"That alone," he said quietly, "would stand between you and me. We made
this land rich and peaceful, but that did not please you and the rest, who
had not sense to see that while human nature's what it is, there's no use
worrying about what you can't have when you have got enough. You went
round sowing trouble, and by and by you'll have to reap it. You brought in
the rabble, and were going to lead them, and make them farmers; but now
they will lead you where you don't want to go, and when you have given
them all you have, turn and trample on you. With the help of the men who
are going back on their own kind, they may get us down, but when that time
comes there will not be a head of cattle left, or a dollar in the
treasury."

"I can only hope you are mistaken, sir," said Grant.

"I have lived quite a long while, but I have never seen the rabble keep
faith with anyone longer than it suited them," the older man said. "Any
way, that is not the question. You will be handed to the Sheriff if you
come here again. I have nothing more to tell you, and this is, I hope, the
last time I shall ever speak to you."

Miss Schuyler watched Grant closely, but though his face was drawn and
set, she saw only a respect, which, if it was assumed, still became him in
his bearing as he turned away. As he passed the girls he bent his head,
and Hetty, whose che