I'll come over to-morrow, if I can, and take a look at that
pasture and all around. And I'll keep a good lookout for the calves."

Many men would have objected to the unconscious patronage of her tone.
That Charlie Fox did not, but accepted the spirit of helpfulness in her
words, lifted him out of the small-natured class.

"It's awfully good of you," he said. "You know a lot more about the
bovine nature than I do, for all I put in every spare minute studying
the subject. I'm taking four different stock journals now, Miss
Louise. I'll bet I know a lot more about the different strains of
various breeds than you do, Miss Cattle-queen. But I'm beginning to
see that we only know what we learn by experience. I've a new book on
the subject of heredity of the cattle. I'm going home and see if
Seabeck hasn't stumbled upon a strain that can be traced back to your
native mountain sheep."

Billy Louise laughed and said good-by, and stood leaning over the gate
watching him as he zigzagged up the hill, stopping his horse often to
breathe. The wagon road took a round-about course, longer and less
steep. At the top, just before he rounded a huge pimple on the face of
the bluff, he stopped and looked down, saw her standing there, and
waved his hat. His horse stood sidewise upon the trail for easier
footing, and the man's head and shoulders were silhouetted sharply
against the deep, clear blue of the sky. Billy Louise felt a little,
unnamed thrill as she stared up at him. Her lips curved into
tenderness. Clean, frank, easy-natured he was, as she had come to know
him. It was like coming into a sunny spot to be with him. And then
she sighed, with that vague feeling of dissatisfaction with herself.
She felt crude and awkward and dull of wit. Her mother, Marthy,
Ward--all the persons she knew--were crude and awkward and ignorant
beside Charlie Fox. And she had had the temerity, the insufferable
effrontery, to criticize him and patronize him over those four calves!

"He can strike out three men in succession," she murmured. "And he
pitched whole games and never walked a man." She gave him a final wave
of the hand, as he turned to climb on out of sight. "And I don't even
know what he was talking about--though I think it was baseball. And I
was awfully snippy about those calves he lost."

She began to wonder, then, about those calves. Vented and not
rebranded, they would be easy game for any man who first got his own