le along somehow. Too bad the old man cashed
in just now; but Aunt Martha as good as told me he wasn't much force,
so maybe I can play a lone hand here as easy as I could have done with
him. Live near here?"

"Fifteen miles or so." Ward was not in his most expansive mood,
chiefly for the reason that this man was a stranger, and of strangers
he was inclined to fight shy.

"Oh, well--it might have been fifty. I know how you fellows measure
distances out here. I'm likely to need a little coaching, now and
then, if I live up to what I just now told the old lady."

"From all I know of her, you won't need to go out of the Cove for
advice."

"Well, that's right, judging from the looks of things. A woman that
can go up against a proposition like she did to-day and handle it
alone, is no mental weakling; to say nothing of the way this ranch
looks. All right, Warren; I'll make out alone, I reckon."

Afterwards, when Ward thought it over, he remembered gratefully that
Charlie Fox had refrained from attempting any discussion of Billy
Louise or from asking any questions even remotely personal. He knew
enough about men to appreciate the tactful silences of the stranger,
and when Billy Louise, on the way home, predicted that the nephew was
going to be a success, Ward did not feel like qualifying the verdict.

"He's going to be a godsend to the old lady," he said. "He seems to
have his sights raised to making things come easier for her from now
on."

"Well, she certainly deserves it. For a college young man--the
ordinary, smart young man who comes out here to astonish the
natives--he's almost human. I was so afraid that Marthy'd get him out
here and then discover he was a perfect nuisance. So many men are."

CHAPTER VI

A MATTER OF TWELVE MONTHS OR SO

Out in the wide spaces, where homes are but scattered oases in the
general emptiness, life does not move uniformly, so far as it concerns
incidents or acquaintanceships. A man or a ranch may experience
complete isolation, and the unbroken monotony which sometimes
accompanies it, for a month at a time. Summer work or winter storm may
be the barrier temporarily raised, and life resolves itself into a
succession of days and nights unbroken by outside influences. They
leave their mark upon humans--these periods of isolation. For better,
for worse, the man changes slowly with the months; he grows more bovine
in his phlegmatic acceptance of his environment, o