But she hid it upon a
shoulder most conveniently at hand.

Spring gave way to early summer--and now Steve was able to be on his
feet again, so absurdly uncertain of balance at first, however, that
she ridiculed him unmercifully one moment, only to rush to him in a
panic of solicitude the next. There came long walks, and longer trips
in the saddle; came hours of silence that were the more wonderful for
want of words--hours in which, in a hushed voice, she gave him shyly of
her plans. But always, too, the interruptions grew more and more
frequent and insistent. Fat Joe and McLean, and even Hardwick Elliott,
made more and more pressing demands upon his time, until finally he
insisted that he could no longer play, shamelessly, the invalid. He
must look in upon the works up-river, if only for the moral effect
which it would have upon the men. She assented, grudgingly; it would
be but a day or two. And then--then he would come back to her.

The next morning, at the moment when Barbara and Steve were mounting
their horses, for she wanted to ride with him a little way, Dexter
Allison chose to disclose something which had been but lately in the
process of preparation. He joined them at the edge of the lawn, before
the white-columned house on the hill.

"Easing back into harness, I understand," he began, not quite
comfortably, however, for he was aware of a gleam of disapproval in his
daughter's eyes, at this interruption. "Well, there's no great rush,
but it's wise, no doubt, to see that things don't lag." He hesitated,
and shifted heavily to the other foot. "We'll want to start through to
the border by fall, I suppose?"

"We'll be ready," Steve had to laugh at his lack of ease.

"No doubt--no doubt!" Again Dexter hesitated, momentarily. And then
there came to the surface that proneness to accept men for what they
were, in a man's world, which had long before convinced Caleb Hunter of
Allison's inherent bigness.

"Elliott resigned the Presidency of the East Coast Company last night."
The statement was brief to actual crispness. "I merely tell you this
so that you can begin to lay tentative plans accordingly. Because, in
view of the immediate need of filling that vacancy, I feel sure that
there will be too many demands upon your time, here at the Morrison
office, for you to plan on much field work for yourself in the future."

To Barbara, at the beginning, the speech seemed merely another of her
father's rat