od when Nan had stepped into the picture.
With pride, and a great satisfaction, he remembered her weeks and
months of devotion to the injured man. Her sleepless, tireless watch.
Her skill and patient tenderness. These things had been colossal. To
him it had been a vision of a mother's tender care for an ailing child.
And the thought of it now stirred him to a touch of bitterness in his
feelings toward his partner and friend.

To Bud there could only be one possible end to such a wealth of
devotion as his little Nan had displayed, but it seemed that all his
ideas on the subject must be wrong. To his uncomprehending mind they
seemed no nearer to each other than in the days before a mad passion
had seized upon Jeff for the woman he had married.

Bud was very human. His patience had its limits, and just now they
seemed to have been reached. He admitted this to himself frankly. He
told himself he had "no durned patience with the bunch." And the bunch
included both Nan and Jeff. He felt that Nan, too, must be to blame in
some way.

He had "no durned patience with the bunch." Therein lay the key-note
of his mixed feelings. Here everything was prospering but the one
thing above all others upon which he had set his heart. He felt as
though he must "butt in" and put matters right himself. How, he did
not attempt to suggest. But he felt that if he did not do so, or
something or other did not occur to precipitate matters, the "whole
durned shootin' match was li'ble to peter."

This was how he saw things. This was how he felt, as he awaited Nan's
return from the pastures.

She came at last. She rode up and passed her weary horse to a
barn-hand who promptly waited upon her. She was covered with dust to
her waist. Her top-boots were white with it. But her cheeks were as
fresh as peach bloom, and her soft eyes shone with all a ranchman's
enthusiasm at the most exhilarating period of the year.

"One hundred an' forty-two young Obars to-day, my Daddy," she cried out
exuberantly. "Ther' don't seem any end to last year's crop. Say,
Jeff's just crazy to death about things."

"He surely is."

The old man's reply was tinged by a reflection of his thoughts. But
his eyes lit nevertheless.

Nan regarded him seriously.

"Most men get a grouch when they're kept waiting food," she observed
slily. "Say, come right in an' you'll soon feel the world's a mighty
good place to live in."

Instantly Bud's humor improve