re picturesque than that homey-looking ranch we
passed a few miles back, down in that little valley. I was hoping that
was your ranch when I first saw it; and when I found it wasn't, I came
near stopping, anyway. I'm glad I resisted the temptation, now. This
is worth coming a long way to see."

"I ain't never had a chance to do all I wanted to with it," said
Marthy, with the first hint of apology Billy Louise had ever heard from
her. "I only had one pair of hands to work with--"

"We'll fix that part. Don't you worry a minute. You're going to sit
in a rocking-chair and give orders, from now on. And if I can't make
good here, I ought to be booted all the way up that spooky gorge.
Isn't that right?" He turned to Warren with a certain air of
appraisement behind the unmistakable cordiality of his voice.

"A man ought to make good here, all right," Ward agreed neutrally.
"It's a fine place."

"It ain't as fine as I'd like to see it," began Marthy depreciatingly.

"As you will see it, let's say--if that doesn't sound too conceited
from a tenderfoot," supplemented the nephew, and laid his hand upon her
shoulder with a gentle little pat. "Folks, I don't want to seem too
exuberantly sure of myself, but--" he waved a carefully-kept hand
eloquently at the luxuriance around him, "--I'm all fussed up over this
place, honest. I thought I was coming to a shack in the middle of the
sage-brush; I was primed to buckle down and make good even in the
desert. And bumping into this sort of thing without warning has gone
to my alleged brain a bit. What I don't know about ranching would fill
a library; but there's this much, anyway. There won't be any more
ditch-digging for a certain game little lady in this Cove." He gave
the shoulder another pat, and he smiled down at her in a way that made
Billy Louise blink. And Marthy, who had probably never before been
called a game little lady, came near breaking down and crying before
them all.

When Ward went to the stable after Blue, half an hour later, Charlie
Fox went with him. His manner when they were alone was different; not
so exuberantly cheerful--more frank and practical.

"Honest, it floored me completely to see what that poor old woman has
been up against down here," he told Warren, stuffing tobacco into a
silver-rimmed, briar pipe while Ward saddled Blue. "I don't know a
hell of a lot about this ranch game; but if that old lady can put it
across, I guess I can wobb