t looked
wholly untroubled.

"Don't try, my Daddy. Guess I've done all that's necessary that way.
Maybe I know just how you're feeling, because I know how I'm feeling.
God's been good to me all my years. He's given me a Daddy who's the
best in the world. A Daddy who's taught me by his own example how to
be strong and fight the little battles I guess it's meant for us to
fight. Oh, I won't say it hasn't hurt," she went on, with a catch in
her voice. "You see, I loved Jeff. I love him now, and I'll go right
on loving him to the end. And it's because I love him I want to help
him now--and always. You won't think me a fool girl, my Daddy, will
you, but--but--I won't hate Elvine van Blooren. I'm--I'm going to try
so hard to like her, and--and anyway, with all my might, I'm going to
help them both. D'you guess Jeff would let me get his house ready
for--his wife?"

The father's reply came with a violence which he calculated should
conceal an emotion which his manhood forbade, but which only helped to
reveal it the more surely to the clear eyes of the girl at his side.

"Hell take the bunch--the whole of 'em!" he cried fiercely. Then he
added weakly: "You're nigh breakin' my heart all to pieces."

But Nan's smile suddenly became radiant, as she turned her brown eyes
away from the spectacle of her father's trouble to the distant horizon
ahead.

She shook her head.

"No, my Daddy. I allow it feels that way just now. I've felt that
way, too. But it's just God's tempering. And when it's through, why I
guess our hearts'll be made of good metal, strong and steady to do the
work He'd have us do. And that's just all we can ask, isn't it?"

CHAPTER XIII

THE NEWS

Nan rode up to the veranda of the ranch house and sprang lightly from
the saddle. Her pony's flanks were caked with sweat. The days now, as
they approached July, were blistering, and the work of the great ranch
was heavy for everybody. Nan had constituted herself Jeff's substitute
during his absence, and performed his share of the labor with a skill
and efficiency which astonished even her father.

She was a little weary just now. The heat was trying. Four weeks of
continuous effort, four weeks of day-long saddle work, superintending
the distant out-stations, the pasture fencing, the re-branding, which
never seemed to come to an end, the hundred and one little duties which
always cropped up unexpectedly; these things, in conjunction with