a stranger stood in the doorway of the tent. he was short and heavily built, with a big, close-shaven head and small, bright eyes. as harriet rose and came forward, he smiled reassuringly.
"my brother is not here just now," the girl said. "he has gone after a load of fence posts. won't you come in?"
"thanks. i'll sit down out here. it's cooler, i reckon. so you're homesteadin', are you? how do you like it?"
he spoke in such a cheery voice and smiled so pleasantly that harriet's fears vanished. "to tell the truth, i don't care much for it," she admitted. "it's so very lonely."
"you're right. homesteadin's hard for a young lady, 'specially one that ain't used to this country. you wa'n't raised out here, i judge, ma'am?"
"oh, no! we come from connecticut."
"say! connecticut! i'll bet you didn't cal'late to hit the hard pan when you come, neither?" he cocked his head, smiled, and then burst into a ringing laugh.
harry laughed, too. "if this is 'hard pan,' i certainly didn't expect to hit it."
"yes, sir, and it'll be a heap harder before you've finished provin' up, too. summer's fine here in the[pg 34] hills, but when the winter sets in! you goin' to stick it out the three years?"
"oh, no! i'm going back. i haven't taken a homestead myself; this is my brother's. i'm only visiting him."
"what's he goin' to do here, anyhow?"
"make a ranch, i guess."
"a ranch? why, it'll take twenty years for him to get the brush off this and get it all into crops. 'tain't fit for nothin' but grazing. you know what he'd ought to have done? took forty acres down in the twin falls district. there's where they're makin' money. that's the place for you young folks from back east to get in and make a strike. you'd have easy sleddin' all the way, and make money, too. but this here—"
he stopped as if he did not care to say too much, and looked off across the sagebrush.
harry had listened, interested at first, and then surprised and disturbed. poor rob! he did not know what he had got into. and oh, how thankful she was that she, too, had not filed a claim!
at that moment rob came around the corner of the tent.
"how do!" he said, and stopped.
"this mr. holliday?" asked the stranger. "my name's joyce."
"glad to meet you, mr. joyce." rob sat down on the grass and took off his hat. "got any fresh water there, harry?" he asked.
"fencing's a big job," he said, as he drained the[pg 35] dipper. "the ground's getting dry now, too, so i have to work fast."
"yes. it's a hard proposition all through," answered joyce. he was silent a moment, and then began abruptly, "i've been telling your sister here what you could do over on the south side; how much better off you would be with forty acres there than with a hundred and sixty here."
"you an agent for the twin falls' tract?" asked rob, with a smile.
"no, sir. i'm a sheepman; but i've got eighty acres down there, and i know what it's going to be. a young fellow like you with brains and spunk could make a fortune there in a few years. here you'll spend a lifetime gettin' a living."
he went on to give a glowing account of the farming on the south side of the snake river—a tract that an irrigation company had lately opened.
"see here," he said suddenly, "i'll tell you what i'll do. i'll exchange forty acres there, all proved up on, only a few payments left, for your homestead, if you'll commute on it. and i'm offering you the biggest price you'll ever get for it."
"why do you offer it if it's so big? why don't you keep your forty?"
"well, it's just this way: i've got to have a water hole here for lambing. i've been coming here on my way to the reserve for twenty years. never thought of filing on this land it's so poor, nothing but the water here but that's what makes it valuable to us stockmen."
"that's what makes it valuable to me. i'm going to run cattle."
joyce laughed loudly. "my boy, cattle would starve where sheep grow fat. you'll be flat broke in five years."
"why haven't you taken it up before?" asked rob. "it's been here a good while."
"well, us stockmen have got so used to having all the wild land we wanted that we haven't realized until too late that you fellows are coming in here and taking it all up."
"then i'm not the only greenhorn from back east who thinks it's good for something."
"if you'll sell out to me, you'll never regret it."
"if i ever decide to sell out, i'll give you first chance to bid on it," rob promised; and that was as much as joyce could get out of him.
when joyce was leaving, he turned in his saddle and called:
"well, so long, holliday! mebbe you'll be sorry you didn't close with me when the sheep begin coming in."
a day or two after joyce's visit, harry called the dog—she had shortened othello to 'thello by this time—and went down to the side of the hundred and sixty where rob was fencing. having so little to occupy her time, she frequently went out to walk in the afternoon, and joined her brother on her way home; but this was the first time she had gone down so early, and[pg 37] she found the brush, under the afternoon sun, a very different place from what it had looked from the shade of the quaking aspens.
out in the brush there was no shade; even the largest clumps of sage, some as high as her head, gave little refuge from the glare of the sun. the desert, lying silent in the sunshine and heat, seemed to fill the visible universe, and to absorb all significance from the tiny human motes that inhabited it. what, harry asked herself, could rob do singlehanded against that inert opponent?
as she watched him bore one hole after another, driving the post-hole digger down through the gravel and earth, repeating monotonously the same motions, never resting, seldom speaking, pausing only to pour a drink of water down his throat or to wipe the sweat from his face with his torn sleeve, he seemed to her to have become a helpless automaton that had been wound up and set going for the amusement of some invisible spectator.
harry was discovering that the west was very different from the picturesque idea she had had of it. her part in it, too, was not the picturesque part she had thought to play. harry saw the west only from its unromantic exterior; not—as rob was seeing it—as the foundation for as great a romance as the world has ever seen: the transforming of the waste places of the earth into a garden of plenty.
if rob had only told her of the dreams and plans[pg 38] that inspired him—but rob was no talker. now, as harry watched him, she felt only the vague discomfort of pity for his overwhelming task.
the heat made her sick, the glare tortured her eyes; she was afraid of the lizards and horned toads that darted across the sand about her; but if she went back to the tent she knew that she would soon become lonely and homesick. she decided to take a short walk. looking over her shoulder toward the foothills, she frowned questioningly.
"rob, who is that up there?"
"hey?" rob straightened himself laboriously and glanced in the direction in which she pointed.
as yet no sheep had bothered them. one or two flocks had come down from the foothills on their way across to the reserve, but rob had warned them off. seeing that their favorite bedding ground had been filed on, the herders had pushed on to the "scab" land.
"aren't those sheep?" asked harry.
"they are," rob said slowly. resting on his shovel, he gazed up at the point where the buttes divided to form a deep coulee.
the leaders of the flock had come rather slowly over the crest of the hill, but now the whole herd came pouring down the glen. the thousand or more animals bleated crazily as they smelled the water and the deep, rich grass below them. two sheep dogs maneuvered them with short, sharp yelps, glancing back for directions to the sheep herder who stood above and with his hat signaled to them what to do.
walking toward the glen, rob motioned to the sheep herder to come down. at first the man paid no attention, but when rob had whistled sharply two or three times, he slowly began to descend the hill.
"he doesn't want to hear me," rob said. "you'll see. he'll pretend he doesn't understand. those mexes are a coony lot; pretend to be stupid, but are sharp as nails when it comes to hanging on to a good grazing ground."
watching the sheep flow along, rob and harry waited. after a while the herder came down the glen toward them.
"say, he's not a mex at all!" rob exclaimed. "he's an american! it must be that herder of joyce's."
the herder, who was a good-looking, heavily built fellow about twenty years old, stopped and looked at rob without speaking. his felt hat was drawn forward over his eyes. he carried a heavy stick that was thick and knotted at the end.
"how do!" he said, glancing inquiringly from brother to sister.
"i suppose you know that this land has been filed on?" rob began. "i'll have to ask you not to herd your sheep in 'round here."
"who's filed on it?"
"i have."
"i don't see no fence."
"i've just come on, and haven't got the fence up yet; but it's mine, just the same."
"well, i don't know if it is," the young fellow replied[pg 40] insolently. his eyes were fastened upon 'thello, who, crouching at harry's feet, had been growling at him.
"where'd you get that pup?" he asked shortly. "he's mine."
"yours?" rob's voice was quiet, but his blood was hot. "i don't see any collar."
an angry glint shot from the herder's eyes. "he's mine, just the same."
"i don't know if he is."
"well, i'm going to have him!" the man muttered, and made a move toward the dog.
but harry was quicker. sweeping 'thello into her arms, she stepped back.
"whoever owned him didn't deserve to!" she cried. "the poor little thing had been starved and beaten nearly to death when we found him, and i'm not going to let him go."
the way in which harry spoke the words, with her head thrown back and her brown eyes shining, carried a challenge; the sheep herder's fist tightened on his stick and his face darkened. then, without a word, he shrugged his shoulders and moved off.
"remember," called rob, "you're to feed on the slopes. i want the meadows for my own stock, and if you aren't careful, i'll have you moved outside the two-mile limit."
the fellow stopped, looked back at them, and then answered, "i reckon you can't do just that. i've filed on the homestead just east of this here one. my name's[pg 41] boykin, if you want to look it up." turning, he went on.
there was a minute of silence. then rob said slowly, "the homestead east; the land i meant you to take."
harry could not answer. a queer, surprising shame and regret held her silent.
she and rob walked down to the tent without speaking a word. anything that rob might have said would have sounded like a reproach, and of what use, he thought, would that have been now? harry longed to have him speak, nevertheless, to have him say something that would show how he did feel. she was much relieved when at last he broke the silence.
"who's that coming?" he said abruptly. "i believe it's brannan with the cow and those heifers."
a cloud of dust was puffing along the road toward the ranch, and through it they saw a man on horseback, with the half-dozen head of cattle which rob had bought. when they came nearer harry recognized the little man as the same who had spoken to rob in the hotel at shoshone.
they hurried across the meadow to the corral; without waiting for them dan had opened the gate and begun to drive in the cattle.
tired, suspicious and frightened, they refused to enter and started off, each in a different direction, but they had reckoned without the old "cow puncher." harry had smiled to herself when first she saw the[pg 42] wizened old man perched upon his big hay horse; but her amusement gave way to wonder and admiration when he began to work the "critters" back toward the corral.
bellowing and kicking they dodged and ran but dan, with his dog and his whip, steered them back and drove them finally through the gateway.
harry, rob and dan looked proudly at the cattle.
"a nice bunch of critters," said rob.
"they are that," dan assented gravely. "as good as any i have and i've the best herd in the valley. now ye've the last word whin some felly picks on 'em."
"a good start is half the journey," said rob, "and i'm obliged to you. come up to the tent, dan. it's hot work riding on a day like this, and sis will make us some lemonade."
"i see you've the sheep still wid ye." dan nodded toward the hillside.
"got 'em for keeps." rob went on to tell what he had just found out. "the worst of it is," he said, "that that herder is a mean one, and joyce is a mean one, too; so between them i guess i'm in for trouble."
dan nodded. "y'are. niver did ye say truer worrud. meanness is the cud thim two niver swallys. but i'll be tellin' ye a thing, lad."
he leaned forward and laid his hand on rob's knee. "ye don't want to let thim think ye're beaten. that joyce has half a dozen homesteads a'ready that he's paid his herders to file on, for sure! but kape yer[pg 43] eyes open, and might be you'd find a way to come up with him yet."
"i'm afraid a tenderfoot like me hasn't much of a show against an old-timer like him."
"niver say it. there niver was a rashcal yit that didn't lave wan footprint at least in the mud, smart as he'd be, and it's mebbe you that's the lad wit' the eyes to see it. watch him, rob, watch him."
rob shook his head, yet nevertheless he felt a glow of hope in his heart.
that evening, just before bedtime, jones returned to the ranch, spread his quilt on the dry grass under a tree and became one of the family. he was good company, and harry would have been glad to have him about, except that he took so much of rob's attention. every morning at sunrise the two began to work with the colts, breaking them one by one to bit and bridle, and then to harness and wagon.
as soon as the forenoon grew warm, they shut the colts in the meadow at the head of the draw. this was a natural pasture lot, watered by a spring that flowed from the rocks under the next lift in the foothills and sheltered on all sides by trees. here the horses were safe and the boys paid no more attention to them throughout the day. jones always rode away through the valley while rob plowed, went on with his task of fencing, or did some work in the garden. after supper the boys resumed their business of breaking the colts.
twice jones had ridden away in the evening taking one or more of the harness-broken horses with him and[pg 44] had returned some days later without them. harry supposed that he had sold them. neither rob nor jones ever talked about the horses in her presence and she had soon understood that she was not expected to ask questions about them.
one morning rob asked his sister to put up some lunch for jones and himself because they were going down the valley on business.
harry put up the lunch and stood watching while they mounted and rode off. among the string of horses which jones had brought in were two well broken to saddle, a black and a sorrel, and to-day the boys each rode one of them. these two horses had run loose for so long a time that they were as frisky and spirited as the colts. as the little party swept away across the wild prairie the girl longed ardently to be with them. she liked to ride—rob had been teaching her—and it did seem hard that she should not be allowed to go along on such trips as these, simply because she was not considered a proper person to share a secret.
hurt pride mingled with resentment struggled together in her breast. it was hard to think that she was still outside rob's deeper interests. her life had, for the moment, lost its zest. she finished tidying up the tent, then went down to the garden determined to be interested in her own tasks, for the planting and weeding of the vegetables that rob, overwhelmed in the press of work, had been forced to leave to her.
she put in several rows of root vegetables, a second planting of peas and beans and was trying to feel enthusiastic about planting corn when a soft crooning call made her turn.
at first nothing living was to be seen. then a quiver amongst the tall weeds and grass along the stream caught her eye, and there came into sight a sage hen leading her brood of five chicks. advancing sedately, craning her long neck to keep watch on every side, pausing to strip the seeds from various weeds, crooning her furtive call to her young, the mother bird moved upstream toward the cool shade of the cañon. suddenly her black, inquiring eye met harry's friendly but eager stare. for an instant the hen stood motionless, her gray-brown coloring blending her confusingly with the sand and sagebrush of the hillside behind her. then, with a short, whistling call she dropped low and harry saw her and the baby chickens slither off toward the willows.
with a sudden determination to follow and have a closer look at these, her nearest neighbors, harry dropped her hoe in the fence corner, shut 'thello inside the garden so he could not chase the birds, and slipped quietly up the draw after them.
