lot had been cast in the East, she could have
had him always with her. A long letter, which she had recently received
from Maxwell Frayne, recounting the gayeties of New York and Washington,
made her homesick. Although she could scarcely think of the two men at
the same moment, still, as she sat in the crude little hotel, she would
have welcomed a little of young Frayne's company for the sake of
contrast. She was yearning for the flesh-pots of her own Egypt.

From the news of the fight at the ranch, which had been brought to town
by the messenger, she gathered that Wade meant to intrench himself on
the ranch and defy the law, which would probably embroil him in other
criminal acts. Crawling Water, too, was rapidly filling up with armed
cattlemen, who, she thought, would do Gordon's cause more harm than
good. Toward afternoon, word came of a bloody skirmish on the Trowbridge
range, between a number of his punchers and some of Moran's hired men,
and that added to the tension among those crowding the main street.

From the parlor windows of the hotel she watched what was going on
outside, not without alarm, so high did feeling seem to run. The threats
of the ranch men, handed about amongst themselves but loud enough for
her to catch a word now and then, made her wonder if the town was really
safe for her father, or for herself. A storm was coming up, and the
rising wind whipped the flimsy lace curtains of the windows and kept
them fluttering like flags. The distant muttering of the thunder and an
occasional sharp flash of lightning wore on her tired nerves until she
could sit still no longer.

For the sake of something to do, she went up to her room, intending to
write some letters there, but her bed had not been made up, so she
returned to the parlor with her fountain pen and writing-pad. To Maxwell
Frayne she wrote a brief note, which was not likely to cheer him much.
She had become so in the habit of taking her moods out on Maxwell that
to do so, even with a pen, was second nature to her. She despised him
for his tolerance of her tyranny, never realizing that he reserved to
himself the privilege of squaring their account, if she should ever
become his wife.

Then to ease her mind of the strain it bore, she wrote at some length to
her mother; not telling the whole truth but enough of it to calm her own
nervousness. She said nothing of the conversation she had overheard, but
went fully into the scene between her fathe