outbursts should never send for
anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very
trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation.
Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple truth, and greeted his
daughter with smoldering eyes, that gradually softened, however, the
longer he looked at her.

"There is somethin' I want to ask yuh, Prairie Bell," he began. "Yuh won't
mind?"

"No, dear," she answered. "What is it?"

"This sheepman Larkin--is it true yuh been courtin' with him while I been
away?"

"I've been riding with him a good deal, and I've seen him every day, if
that is what you mean. You trust me to be sensible, don't you, father?"

"Yes, Julie, o' course I do; but I'm just thinkin' of yerself--and of me.
Dunno what people'd say if they knowed ol' Bissell's daughter was
traipsin' around with a sheepman that stands in with the rustlers. An'
you--I allow it'd break my heart if yuh ever got fond of that rascal. He's
a bad lot."

"I can't agree with you in any of those things," said the girl, with just
the right mixture of determination and affection in her voice. "To anyone
who is fair, it is no disgrace to be a sheepman; Mr. Larkin is not in with
the rustlers, as I believe he outlined to you, nor is he a rascal in any
way. Lastly, I don't care what people say about whom I ride with. Mr.
Larkin is a gentleman, and that is all I require."

During this speech, which held the middle ground between daring and
prudence, independence and acquiescence, civility and impertinence,
Bissell's jaw dropped and his eyes opened. He had rarely, if ever, known
his daughter to make such an explicit refutal of his inferences. His brow
darkened.

"Yuh never stuck up fer a man like that in yore life, Julie," he accused
her severely. "That Larkin is a bad one. Mebbe yuh don't know it, but he
can't answer for everything in his life. O' course, you can't understand
these things, but I'm just tellin' yuh. Now, I'm plumb sorry to have to do
it, but I want yuh to tell me yuh won't go out with him any more."

"I don't think you should ask me that, father," said the girl quietly. "I
am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for
years, where you have only known him for days. I love you too much to
disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a
fifteen-year-old schoolgirl."

To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended
pur