that more than joe's surliness stood between isita and harry, the latter was not long in discovering. she was not easily discouraged from attempting anything she had set her heart on, and at first she made all sorts of pretexts for going up to the biane's. sometimes it was to carry eggs or new pieplant or lettuce; "we have so much," she explained to the silent, haggard-faced woman who came to the door; or it was a bundle of illustrated papers that had been sent her from home, and she thought isita might be interested in them. once or twice she asked boldly if isita might not come down and stay with her for a few days to help with the chores, while she was working outside with rob. but biane himself made it plain that isita was expected to work for her own family, and mrs. biane avoided seeing or talking to their neighbor. to be sure, isita came down to the holliday's, but it was to "borrow" soap, salt, tools and various other small necessities of which the shiftless biane family stood in need, and she was always in a nervous hurry to get back home and never accepted harry's friendliest urging to stay awhile. harry felt sure that the younger girl wanted to be friends, that in this lonely land of vast distances each of them needed the other. but she saw that isita was very much afraid of her quiet, smiling tyrannical[pg 156] father and, in spite of her unmistakable attachment to harry, she was too shy to talk of home troubles.

as the spring days lengthened there was, too, less time for visiting. to the sagebrush homesteader the sixty days of may and june are the heart of the year's labor and a man must keep things moving from dawn to dark, if he means to get ahead. no sooner is the frost out of the ground, no sooner have the break-up floods of snow water run off, the quaking morass of meadow-lands grown solid earth once more, than the plow must be started.

harry had learned to handle the four-horse disk plow and the harrow as well, so, while rob worked one team she handled the other. they now had four heavy work horses, besides three colts that could be used off and on, and quite a bunch of half-broke and young stuff belonging to owens, which they worked as payment for their feed; thus there were few idle hours while the spring drive lasted.

to harry each new morning was a fresh adventure and whenever rob did not need her for an hour or so, she explored the steep sides of the rocky buttes, the narrow cañons separating them, and the tree-filled "draw" behind the house. nor was it altogether careless amusement which led her to this. she had discovered that a good many other people went to and fro through the cañons and across the foothills near by: surveyors, sheepherders, looking for strayed stock, and men who were just "going through." often these various wayfarers carried "guns" that were sometimes[pg 157] rifles but oftener, especially late in summer, shotguns. and it had not taken harry long to discover that the men with shot guns were after grouse and sage hen.

from the time of her arrival on the ranch she had been interested in the wild birds and had soon begun trying to protect them. rob had hung "no shooting" signs along all the fences and already the birds seemed to know that they were protected in that spot and came fearlessly to feed in the alfalfa and close to the house.

but even signs and outspoken orders would not keep a certain class of game butchers away. they came even before the season opened, shooting early in the morning and trusting to the lack of settlers to escape arrest. harry had several times driven off these poachers, but there was one who persisted in defying her. that was joe biane. he was so sly, so sharp, so indifferent to all remonstrance or warning that harry realized it was useless to threaten with words only; if he would shoot on her land he should be punished.

she came to this decision one morning in may when she had run out to try and get a snapshot of a grouse cock strutting on the edge of the alfalfa. she had moved cautiously along behind the currant bushes until just within the right distance to get a good picture and was adjusting the camera when a shotgun cracked in the draw above her.

"after my birds again!" harry exclaimed indignantly. "if it's joe i declare i'll go straight to town and fetch the game warden up here to arrest him. of[pg 158] course he's spoiled my picture, too!" for the grouse had folded his wings and scuttled out of sight into the willows.

"i'll just go right along and see who that was," harry decided, closing her camera and starting up the cow path through the glen.

at this time of the year the steep sides of the ravine were masked in the leafage of quaking asp, thorn apple, willow and choke cherry, and it was next to impossible to see whether the person shooting was there or not.

harry did not stop to explore. she knew by experience that it was farther up in the high meadow, a favorite nesting place of grouse and sage hen that she was most likely to find the poachers. now, in her excitement she had started running (joe should not evade her!) but the path was steep, the sun ardent, and before she could reach the meadow she was out of breath, hot, and not any calmer. in a final, desperate effort to cut across joe's path toward home she swerved through the trees and almost ran over joe himself.

he was moving stealthily through the willows, but startled by harry's unexpected appearance, he stopped short.

"joe!" she exclaimed; "i thought so."

"you did!" he laughed mischievously. "i ain't the only fella that takes a short cut through here, am i?"

"you take it oftenest. outsiders don't get here[pg 159] quite so early in the morning, as a rule. i see i'm too late to save my birds, though."

she pointed indignantly to the grouse hen that hung from joe's left hand.

joe looked at it too. "pretty nice one, ain't it," he observed. "want i should get you one?"

"i should say not!" she exclaimed angrily. "and what's more, you may put that one down. i've told you not to shoot on my land, and i don't intend to have you carry off the birds under my nose, even though they are dead. give that to me, please."

she reached out her hand, but joe stepped alertly back. "this ain't yours," he said. he was no longer smiling; instead he eyed her sullenly, a cruel expression on his handsome face. harry remembered that he had looked at her just so the day he had tried to pull her sweater from isita. "everybody's got a right to the wild critters," he added. "besides," glancing covertly at harry, "i was gettin' this because isita likes 'em."

for a second harry faltered. the picture of the younger girl, thin, tired-looking, unmistakably underfed came before her. but even as she started to yield, her indignation flamed again. "oh, well, if it's for isita," she answered with affected surprise, "give it to me. i'll take it home and cook it, and you tell your sister i've invited her down to dinner."

"not much," joe answered shortly. "we don't beg a meal off'n any one."

[pg 160]

"an invitation isn't begging; but never mind. if you're as anxious as you say to please your sister, go put your time into plowing and planting; then you won't have to depend on a tough grouse hen for dinner."

her eyes went again to the limp, feathered form, the bloodstained breast.

"such stupid cruelty!" she exclaimed. "to shoot the hens at this season when it means a nestful of young ones left to starve."

"aw!" joe growled contemptuously and began to walk away. "what's that to you? you ain't running this country, so far's i know, and you ain't a goin' to stop me gettin' a sage hen. i'll shoot when i like."

"not on my land," she warned him. "remember, joe, i've told you to keep out. next time i'll bring the game warden up here and have you arrested."

he laughed mockingly, his face darkening. "you'll do a whole lot," he sneered; "just like you tried down at the school. but isita didn't run any more of your errands and she didn't wear your sweater. did she?"

"because your father took her out of school and moved out of that district is no proof that what i did was wrong."

"what do i care for your 'methods'? i'll get even with you if you try any of your bossing on me. better watch out, miss schoolmarm."

harry looked after him as he disappeared in the willows. "such people!" she exclaimed with sparkling eyes and clenched hands. "they are a menace to the country."

she broke off with a start and turned. while she had been talking with joe a man on horseback had come over the ridge and crossed the meadow. as she turned, the rider, who had drawn rein and was looking down at her with interest, touched his hat. harry's cheeks reddened as she explained what had happened.

"get the law on him, like you threatened," the stranger advised. "that'll learn him. it ain't good business not to stick up for your rights."

"it's not only my rights, it's the birds' rights i'm fighting for, and unfortunately joe is not the only one who needs teaching. in spite of signs all round our fence the hunters come right inside and shoot. i did think westerners were more honorable."

at her warmth the man laughed quietly. it was a sort of laughter that fitted his comfortable appearance; middle-aged, bearded, with the mildly decisive manner of a person used to giving orders. his fine saddle horse and saddle, yet plain dress, showed him to be a man familiar with the ways of that country. he made an instant impression upon the girl. she was too frank and guileless to recognize that under the smoothness of his manner were hard purpose and a hidden threat for any one who crossed him.

"you're from the east, then?" he asked.

"from connecticut. i came out three years ago to stay with my brother, robert holliday."

"yes. of course. joyce told me that holliday had a ranch up this way. ludlum's my name. i live down in the lower country at the siding."

[pg 162]

harry knew who ludlum was—the stockman who shipped twice as many cattle as any other man living on the railway line. a new town had grown up around the station that had been put in to accommodate him.

"don't you get lonesome up in these hills, young lady?" ludlum inquired.

"not very. there's too much to do. all summer there's work on the place and every winter i've taught school down on the flat."

"saving up to get you an auto?" asked the stockman with a laugh.

"saving up for cattle," harry replied.

"so! you're going into stock, are you? i thought all the ranchers up here on the prairie were grain crazy."

"most of them are; but my brother says the money is in feeding what you raise. 'ship it on the hoof, not in the sack' is his motto."

"and a mighty good one, too. those your cows down yonder?"

he was leaning on his saddle horn, pointing down the draw. from where they stood they could look between the steep, rocky walls of the buttes upon a wonderful picture of the ranch, narrow, but immensely long. beginning with the garden on the upper end of the slope below the glen, it widened as it descended, taking in the green-blinded white cottage with its porch and young shade trees, the corral with its long stock sheds, the deep-green alfalfa, the emerald of winter wheat, the shaded browns of fall-plowed earth and,[pg 163] across the creek, the tossing sea of scab land, the flat of camas prairie and the mountains. to complete it, strung out along the creek, was rob's bunch of cattle. harry felt very proud of them. on the very day of her arrival in idaho rob had bargained for a little bunch of heifers. they were now cows with their calves beside them, and in her mind's eye harry always saw them multiplied a hundred-fold, into the herd they were working for.

"that ain't all you've got, is it?" asked ludlum.

"that's all," admitted harry, and felt suddenly how small a herd of forty head must look to the stockman. in a country where everything ran in big numbers, from the miles that you lived from the post office to the feet of snow and degrees below zero, it sounded "small farmerish" to have so few heads of stock.

"you've got the right sort of place for a stock ranch," ludlum told her. "have you proved up yet?"

"we have on the original hundred and sixties; but we've filed on additional homesteads. we'll prove up on those next spring. that will give us six hundred and forty acres; about half of it seeded—pasture and hay. we plan to stay in here this winter. we've both saved up some money, and it looks as if we were going to have plenty of hay."

"you've thought it all out ahead, i see," ludlum said, with a sort of surprised admiration. for "tenderfoot" easterners holliday and his sister seemed very practical and businesslike.

an idea swung slowly round into his thoughts. he[pg 164] was silent for a moment as he gazed down at the ranch.

"why don't you get a bigger herd to start with?" he asked presently. "there's lots of money in cattle nowadays, but it's slow making it when you start so small."

"of course; but we haven't the capital to start a big herd, and my brother doesn't believe in mortgaging."

"that's a good principle, generally; but taking cattle on time is different. your herd increases so fast that you're making fifteen or twenty per cent, instead of four or five. supposing, say, you were to borrow off a stockman like me. say i make over a hundred head of stock—white-face, good beef critters, you understand—and you have hay to feed up into the spring. then you could figure like this."

fascinated, convinced in spite of herself, harry listened while ludlum rapidly sketched the problem, the profit and loss, the complete working, so it seemed to the girl, of a stock ranch. he made rob's little bunch of cows appear almost contemptibly unimportant. after all, it appeared to be just as she had believed: if you had energy, confidence and common sense, you were virtually sure of succeeding. rob's idea of poking along for years, collecting a heifer here and there on the way, was hopelessly wrong and unnecessary.

an impulse moved her to speak. "won't you come down to the house now and talk to rob?" she begged. "he's off plowing, but he'll be in for dinner.[pg 165] i'm sure you could convince him that your plan is a sound one for us."

"i'd be glad to," ludlum answered, gathering up his reins, "but i'm on my way to the reserve to look at the pasture. if it'll be agreeable, i'll stop a few days later on my way back."

"we'll always be glad to see you," harry responded cordially. "meanwhile i'll tell my brother what you've told me about making money with cattle."

"so that's holliday's," ludlum said to himself as he rode on. "joyce told me it was the best location round here. funny how these-here suckers think they can come along any time they like and shut us old-timers out of every good water hole in the country! h'm! well," he remarked presently as if finishing a silent argument, "the way it stands suits me first-rate. a year from july, say, i'd be able to feed a big bunch of stock in there."