Angus?"

"That you're making the last part up," her brother grinned.

"Not a word, not a syllable. I told her I thought you were a big,
fine-looking young man, and what do you think she said?"

"I'll bet she didn't agree with you."

"''Tis yer duty as a sisther to stand up f'r yer brother,' she told me,
'an' I am not mixin' it wid yez on th' question iv his shape. 'Tis true
he's that big they was a good pair iv twins spoilt in him, and he has
th' legs an' arrums an' back iv a rale man; but his face is that hard it
wud make a foine map f'r a haythen god.'"

"Huh!" Angus snorted. "She ought to look at her own."

"Heavens, Angus! I believe you're vain."

"Vain--blazes!" Angus growled. "I suppose I ought to be tickled when an
old she-mick says I look like a totem pole."

"Like a god!" his sister chuckled. "Don't get sore, old boy. Miss Winton
says she's never complimentary to the people she likes best. She thinks
you've made a hit with the lady."

"Then I wonder what she'd have said about my figurehead if I hadn't?"
Angus grinned. "I like the old girl, myself, but she sure does hand it
to me. Well, I guess I can take my medicine."

But Angus had more important things to think about. One which began to
worry him was exceptionally dry weather. High, drying winds sucked all
the moisture from the soil, and with the loss of it the surface earth
shifted and blew away from the roots of the grain. Deprived of this
support, they twisted in the winds, their arteries of life hardened and
withered. The grass crops were poor, short and wiry when they should
have been lush and long. Pallid green instead of dark dominated the hue
of the fields, the worst possible sign to the eye of the rancher. And
this was in spite of the best that could be done by way of irrigation.

Now Angus obtained the water for his ditch system from a mountain creek
fed by innumerable springs as well as by melting snows back in the
hills. But for the first time in his experience he found himself without
sufficient water. For he had been clearing land steadily, year after
year, without enlarging his main ditch. So far the seasons had favored
him. But now, in the first, old-time dry season for years, he found that
his ditch was insufficient to irrigate his enlarged acreage.

It was out of the question to deepen or broaden the ditch just then. To
do so would be a task of some magnitude, for from intake to ranch was
nearly two miles. Time had packed and ce