he was able to say before the rider pulled up at the open door of the covered wagon.

He was such a rider as may still be seen in those last depths of the ranching country where wheels have not entirely crowded Romance off of horseback. Spare and well-knit, his figure had a suggestion of slightness which the scales would have belied. His face, keen and clean-shaven, was brown as the August hills, and above it his broad hat sat in the careless dignity affected by the gentlemen of the plains. His leather coat afforded protection from the heat of day and from the cold of night.

"Good evening, men," he said, courteously. "Don't let me disturb your meal. Afterwards perhaps I can have a word with the boss."

"That's me," said Transley, rising.

"No, don't get up," the stranger protested, but Transley insisted that he had finished, and, getting down from the wagon, led the way a little distance from the eager ears of its occupants.

"My name is Grant," said the stranger; "Dennison Grant. I am employed by Mr. Landson, who has a ranch down the valley. If I am not mistaken you are Mr. Transley."

"You are not mistaken," Transley replied.

"And I am perhaps further correct," continued Grant, "in surmising that you are here on behalf of the Y.D., and propose cutting hay in this valley?"

"Your grasp of the situation does you credit." Transley's manner was that of a man prepared to meet trouble somewhat more than half way.

"And I may further surmise," continued Grant, quite unruffled, "that Y.D. neglected to give you one or two points of information bearing upon the ownership of this land, which would doubtless have been of interest to you?"

"Suppose you dismount," said Transley. "I like to look a man in the face when I talk business to him."

"That's fair," returned Grant, swinging lightly from his horse. "I have a preference that way myself." He advanced to within arm's length of Transley and for a few moments the two men stood measuring each other.

It was steel boring steel; there was not a flicker of an eyelid.

"We may as well get to business, Grant," said Transley at length. "I also can do some surmising. I surmise that you were sent here by Landson to forbid me to cut hay in this valley. On what authority he acts I neither know nor care. I take my orders from Y.D. Y.D. said cut the hay.

I am going to cut it."

"YOU ARE NOT!"

Transley's muscles could be seen to go tense beneath his shirt.

"Who will stop me?" he demanded.

"You will be stopped."

"The Mounted Police?" There was contempt in his voice, but the contempt was not for the Force. It was for the rancher who would appeal to the police to settle a "friendly" dispute.

"No, I don't think it will be necessary to call in the police," returned Grant, dropping back to his pleasant, casual manner. "You know Y.D., and doubtless you feel quite safe under his wing. But you don't know Landson. Neither do you know the facts of the case--the right and wrong of it. Under these handicaps you cannot reach a decision which is fair to yourself and to your men."

"Further argument is simply waste of time," Transley interrupted. "I have told you my instructions, and I have told you that I am going to carry them out. Have you had your supper?"

"Yes, thanks. All right, we won't argue any more. I'm not arguing now--I'm telling you, Y.D. has cut hay in this valley so long he thinks he owns it, and the other ranchers began to think he owned it. But Landson has been making a few inquiries. He finds that these are not Crown lands, but are privately owned by speculators in New York. He has contracted with the owners for the hay rights of these lands for five years, beginning with the present season. He is already cutting farther down the valley, and will be cutting here within a day or two."

"The trout ought to bite on a fine evening like this," said Transley. "I have an extra rod and some flies. Will you try a throw or two with me?"

"I would be glad to, but I must get back to camp. I hope you land a good string," and so saying Grant remounted, nodded to Transley and again to the men now scattered about the camp, and started his horse on an easy lope down the valley.

"Well, what is it to be?" said Linder, coming up with the rest of the boys. "War?"

"War if they fight," Transley replied, unconcernedly. "Y.D. said cut the hay; 'spite o' h.e.l.l an' high water,' he said. That goes."

Slowly the great orb of the sun sank until the crest of the mountains pierced its molten glory and sent it burnishing their rugged heights. In the east the plains were already wrapped in shadow. Up the valley crept the veil of night, hushing even the limitless quiet of the day. The stream babbled louder in the lowering gloom; the stamp and champing of horses grew less insistent; the cloudlets overhead faded from crimson to mauve to blue to grey.

Transley tapped the ashes from his pipe and went to bed.

CHAPTER IV

"How about a ride over to the South Fork this afternoon, Zen?" said Y.D.

to his daughter the following morning. "I just want to make sure them boys is. .h.i.ttin' the high spots. The gra.s.s is gettin' powerful dry an'

you can never tell what may happen."

"You're on," the girl replied across the breakfast table. Her mother looked up sharply. She wondered if the prospect of another meeting with Transley had anything to do with Zen's alacrity.

"I had hoped you would outgrow your slang, Zen," she remonstrated gently. "Men like Mr. Transley are likely to judge your training by your speech."

"I should worry. Slang is to language what feathers are to a hat--they give it distinction, cla.s.s. They lift it out of the drab commonplace."

"Still, I would not care to be dressed entirely in feathers," her mother thrust quietly.

"Good for you, Mother!" the girl exclaimed, throwing an arm about her neck and planking a firm kiss on her forehead. "That was a solar plexus.

Now I'll try to be good and wear a feather only here and there. But Mr.

Transley has nothing to do with it."

"Of course not," said Y.D. "Still, Transley is a man with snap in him.

That's why he's boss. So many of these ornery good-for-nothin's is always wishin' they was boss, but they ain't willin' to pay the price.

It costs somethin' to get to the head of the herd--an' stay there."

"He seems firm on all fours," the girl agreed. "How do we travel, and when?"

"Better take a democrat, I guess," her father said. "We can throw in a tent and some bedding for you, as we'll maybe stay over a couple of nights."

"The blue sky is tent enough for me," Zen protested, "and I can surely rustle a blanket or two around the camp. Besides, I'll want a riding horse to get around with there."

"You can run him beside the democrat," said her father. "You're gettin'

too big to go campin' promisc'us like when you was a kid."

"That's the penalty for growing up," Zen sighed. "All right, Dad. Say two o'clock?"

The girl spent the morning helping her mother about the house, and casting over in her mind the probable developments of the near future.

She would not have confessed outwardly to even a casual interest in Transley, but inwardly she admitted that the promise of another meeting with him gave zest to the prospect. Transley was interesting. At least he was out of the commonplace. His bold directness had rather fascinated her. He had a will. Her father had always admired men with a will, and Zen shared his admiration. Then there was Linder. The fierce light of Transley's charms did not blind her to the glow of quiet capability which she saw in Linder. If one were looking for a husband, Linder had much to recommend him. He was probably less capable than Transley, but he would be easier to manage.... But who was looking for a husband? Not Zen. No, no, certainly not Zen.

Then there was George Drazk, whose devotions fluctuated between "that Pete-horse" and the latest female to cross his...o...b..t. At the thought of George Drazk Zen laughed outright. She had played with him. She had made a monkey of him, and he deserved all he had got. It was not the first occasion upon which Zen had let herself drift with the tide, always sure of justifying herself and discomfiting someone by the swift, strong strokes with which, at the right moment, she reached the sh.o.r.e. Zen liked to think of herself as careering through life in the same way as she rode the half-broken horses of her father's range. How many such a horse had thought that the lithe body on his back was something to race with, toy with, and, when tired of that, fling precipitately to earth!

And not one of those horses but had found that while he might race and toy with his rider within limitations, at the last that light body was master, and not he.... Yet Zen loved best the horse that raced wildest and was hardest to bring into subjection.

That was her philosophy of life so far as a girl of twenty may have a philosophy of life. It was to go on and see what would happen, supported always by a quiet confidence that in any pinch she could take care of herself. She had learned to ride and shoot, to sleep out and cook in the open, to ride the ranges after dark by instinct and the stars--she had learned these things while other girls of her age learned the rudiments of fancy-work and the scales of the piano.