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 for speech. She crawled in and slammed it shut. "All right. Go on."

"What about Mr. Forrest?"

"He's not coming. Go on, please."

With a deliberation that drove her frantic Jake let in the clutch and the car moved on. None too soon. She could hear Herbert close behind it as it got under way.

She chattered feverishly at first as they went along, but Jake, uneasy and suspicious of he knew not what, had relapsed into taciturnity.

"I don't know what your folks'll say about this, Miss Kay," he said once.

"Herbert will tell them. It's all right."

And again: "You'd ought to have brought a coat or something. This night air gets mighty chilly."

"I'm not cold at all."

They went on in silence. Once they passed a round-up outfit camped beside the road. It was on its way to the Reservation, and in the moonlight she could see the horses of the remuda peacefully grazing behind wire. The cook tent was lighted, and from inside she could hear men's voices and laughter.

"Potter's," Jake said briefly. "They're shipping eight thousand head this fall."

If there was any bitterness in his tone she did not notice. Potter was going to buy the ranch. He was still holding out, but Jake knew it would come. He would buy the ranch and turn in black-faced sheep on the upper pastures and plant wheat lower down; and Hank Tulloss in town would finance the deal, or maybe take a part of it himself. He knew what the L. D. could be, did Tulloss. He never put a dollar into anything unless he saw two coming out.

He was very taciturn after that. Suddenly they rose to the top of a hill, and the town lay before them. A locomotive whistled down at the track, a disreputable white poodle dog dashed across the road in front of them.

"Old Dunham'd better keep that pup of his at home!"

Paved streets, neat houses under trees with bits of lawn