outh. At heart he was an adventurer, of the stuff of
which the old conquistadores were made.

Jean needed no encouragement to study. Outwardly, Angus was hard and
practical. Outwardly, Jean was thoughtful and at times dreamy. Inwardly
the reverse was true. Jean was more practical than he, less inclined to
secret dreams. She intended to fit herself to teach, and her studies
were a means to that end. But most of Angus' reading, apart from
technical works, was the end itself. He was not conscious that it was
developing him, broadening his outlook, replacing to some extent more
intimate contact with the outer world of men and affairs.

Thus time passed and another year slid around. Alice Page was gone,
teaching in a girls' residential small college on the coast. The ranch
was beginning to respond to the hard work. Stock on the range was
increasing in numbers and value. More settlers were coming in, and land
which had been a drug on the market was beginning to find purchasers.

Angus had grown into a young man, tall and lean, quite unstiffened by
his hard work. Turkey was a youth, slimmer of build and smaller of bone
than his brother, but wiry and hard and catlike in quickness. Jean had
grown from a slip of a girl into a slender, brown-eyed maid. She was
through with the local school, and though she never hinted at it, Angus
knew quite well that she desired to attend the college where Alice Page
taught. It was characteristic of him that he said nothing until he could
speak definitely. But one night he told her she had better get ready to
go. Jean was startled.

"How on earth did you know I was thinking of that?"

"It didn't need the second sight of old Murdoch McGillivray," her
brother returned. "You had better get such things as you want."

"But--can you afford it?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yes. You write to Alice to-night."

So in the early fall Jean went away, and her brothers missed her very
much; Turkey, because he had now to mend his own clothes and take a turn
at the cooking, and Angus because he had confided in her more than in
anybody else.

When the fall grew late and the snow near, Rennie rode the range for
stock, which was usually split up into small bands, scattered here and
there in valleys and pockets along the base of the hills. Each bunch had
its own territory, from which it seldom strayed unless feed got short.
Therefore any given lot could usually be found by combing a few square
miles. Before the